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John R?^ Rooers 



Seattle, Wash. 

THE ALLEN PRINTING CO. 

1895- 



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Copyright 1895 

By John R. Rogkrs 

Puyallup, Washington. 



TO MY READERS: 

Tn the rather hastily written chapters which follow, many imper- 
Ifections will no doubt be seen; the purpose which runs through 
chem all will, I hope, be as readily found. 

The Declaration of Independence which all good Americans 
believe rests upon a solid foundation of truth, asserts that all men 
possess certain natural rights derived from the Creator. These 
Tights are not there fully and explicitly stated. They are, in all 
their fullness, only hinted at. But to all it must be "clear that if 
man possesses a right to life he must also have a right to whatever 
nature, or the Creator, has provided which is absolutely essential to 
the preservation of that life. In no case must he be dependent 
upon fellow mortals for the free gift of God. Otherwise his right 
to life is gradually destroyed by the persistent inhumanity of man 
to man. 

The earth in a state of nature is the provision of God against 
the wants of man. Where not prevented by the laws of men from 
applying his labor to this free gift of the Creator, man cannot be 
utterly crushed and absolute want becomes impossible. 

This, then is the cause of the miserable and frightful poverty 
which ever attends our so-called civilization. The rich and the 
powerful withhold from struggling humanity a natural right. 

Think, my brother, one moment clearly and candidly for your- 
self. Do you imagine for an instant that men may be deprived of 
that which thefi-eator has intended for freemen and that they may 
still retain 4^at freedom? Was that grand declaration of our 
fathers mere idle bombast? Have men no natural rights? 
Were they placed upon this rolling ball to become the mere serfs and 
tools of their more crafty brothers? These are questions which 
m God's name I bid you answer. 

The Author. 



Seattle, Wash, 

THE ALLEN PRINTING CO.- 
1895- 



/ 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



BY- 



JOHN R. KOOKRS 



CHAPTER I. 



MAX'S INHUMANITY TO MAN. 



In his day iiiipiiigPiWt Daniel Webster God." According to the story, told at 

was regarded in New England with the the time, this weighty thought so im- 

greatest pride and reverence. No one pressed the company that they shortly 

had the slightest doubt as to who was separated, going at once to their homes, 
meant when the village editor referred — Fifty years ago, among men of Puri- 

as he often did — to "the god-like Dan."' tanic training this was, from their standi UjC^-^^ 

He was a man of great mental force and i^, an exceedingly weighty utterance, 

power joined to rqagniiicent physical but times change and men with them, 

proportions. His "presence" was com- It is true that there are in the world at 

manding and his words, at times, seemed any time but few men of Webster's cal- 

little short of inspiration. As was the ibre and but few who could dispute a 

case with most New Englanders of his point with him, still, if we are to have 

time he was deeply tinctured with strong independent and self governing mind.«5 

religious feeling, nothwithstanding the we must all think and decide for our- 

fact that in his later years he was known selves each and every matter presented 

to be a heavy drinker when in the com- to us for decision. '*Bven a cat may 

panyofboon companions. Once, when look at a king." And every man 

surrounded by convivialists at a banquet worthy the name of man must be his 

some one suddenly asked him: "Mr. own man and not the mere weak copy 

Webster, what was your greatest of another. So, without attempting to 

thought?" Although, at the time, par- eqnal the sententious utterance of a 

tially intoxicated the gravity of the Webster I must dissent. To me his 

question seemed to sober him for the thought appears quite a secondary one; 

moment and steadying himself by grasp- nor can I escape the conclusion that, -imr 

ing the table with both hands he said, w^ this as a chief and engrossing 

in his most impressive manner: "My thought, when considered m connection 

greatest thought was, and is, a fact; the with the vast misery of millions of suf- 

fact of my individual responsibility to fering and sorrowing brothers and sis- 



6 HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 

terswho surround me in this "vale of the helpless children of ''^he slum^^^^^ 
tears "is selfish and cowardly in the Conceived m sm and brought forth m 
extreme. Surrounded, as we are in this iniquity, how can they know any good 
the only world of which we know any t^ing? Surrounded by vice .nd crime 
thing, and which forms the sole field of .^ow can they be virtuous? And will 
action for us, to centre all our thought lyou hold them responsible for their own 
upon ourselves is to play the coward fdegradation? Is it not plain as things 
and refuse the duties now pressing upon ^are with them that they are deprived of 
our consideration. What is thought of a fair chance in life, that liberty and the 
the seamen who upon the appearance ot rational pursuit of happiness is impossi- 
* 'rough weather" abandon the passen- ble to them? 



gers committed to their care, betaking 
themselves to the life boat and appar- 
rent security? Is it not plain that "the 
eternal fitness of things." under such 



Talk of the savagery and cannibalism 
of the past, men are really and in truth 
cannibals today— they live upon their 
fellows— and if removed from the suf- 
circumstances, can onlf be propitiated ferings of their victims, so that their 
by the loss and death of the deserters? eyes do not immediately behold them, 
And if we go for instruction in this mat- they live in peace and die m luxury 
ter to the "book of books," to that vol- without a thought of the awful suffering 
ume from which the Christian draws his entailed by their indirect acts. Look 
inspiration, we find that the first lesson for yourself, in any town, upon the 
there taught regarding human conduct prisoners of poverty. Or, read the 
relating to the duty of man to man states papers. A few ^itisfafire^ must suffice, 
and emphasizes the fact that we are our In the New York Sun I read the follow- 
brother's keepers. Now, today, the ing: 

voice of Deity is heard in the heart of "LiHie Smith of Brooklyn, aged 
every trueman: "Where is thy brother?" twenty years, after having spent her 
And when this has been duly considered strength combatting poverty from the 
it is followed by: "Thy brothers' blood time she was old enough to know what 
crieth to me from the ground." Ques- want was, wrote the following and then 
tions here arise which must be answered swallowed a fatal dose of poison:" 
and he who weakly refuses to entertain ^^ whom it may concern. 

them, flying from their consideration to ^ ^^ ^.^^^ ^^ poverty, i have tried hard to 
thoughts of his own personal safety is keep up my courage but it has failed at last. I 
best answered by Jesus who tells him am alone in the world, there is no one to love 

i.T-_. u„ ...u^ 1^ fv,„. oo,r^ v,,'o Ufa. me and I have nothing to live for. I am tired 

of being poor and have taken poison. May 



that he who would thus save his life 
shall assuredly lose it. Nor can we for- 
get that His was a life of self sacrifice 
for the good of others and that, as St. 
Paul tells us, "He was an ensample 
unto us." 

To me the most tremendous thought 
of the time is not of my own personal 
welfare but the vast misery of my fel- 
lows. Look for a moment at the un~ 
cared for thousands in any great city! 
What a commentary upon our boasted 
civilization! Christian it is not. For 



God forgive my soul. 

Poor Lilly, rest in peace, but upon 
whomsoever this stone shall faU it will 
grind him to powder. I know nothing 
of this poor child's history, but remem- 
ber that Victor Hugo has told us of the 
child harlots who begin at eight and end 
at twenty as old women. Who can 
measure the depths of human wretch- 
ness? 

Another case from the same paper: 



Ann Fullman, a widow with two young 
here the simplest rules and precepts of children, lives at 6i8 East Ninth street, 
that faith are set at naught. Think of in two rooms at the rear. It takes all 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



her time to finish pantaloons at 13 cents nothing. Society could afford to pay if 
a pair. She used to go out scrubbing he would engage to hang himself." 



but her health gave out and now she sits 
all day at the window of her room im- 
bibing concentrated diseases from a 
combination of bad smells from the 
court yard and bad light taken exter- 
nally and starvation taken internally. 
She is no worse off than hundreds of 
neighbors in the same vicinity who 
finish pantaloons or do similar work for 



But enough of this. Whence come 
these unnatural conditions, these unnat- 
ural sorrows, these unnatural crimes? 
Pour, if you will, over the dusty tomes 
of the past. Search out the history of 
the dead nations of antiquity; of Baby- 
lon, Assyria, Egypt, Persia, Greece and 
Rome and in all the cause of death is 
found the same. The hardy yeomanry, 



a living, or for a death bed — for none of upon which strong nations, and living 
them can make enough to live on. She peoples must rest and depend, were de 
says she can make about two dollars a prived by the machinations of the 1 
week. money changers of their hold upon the 

One more: At 529 East Fourteenth soil. Their little homes were gradually 
street, on the second floor of the rear taken from;them by the slow operation of 
tenement, reached through a dark hall- causes which they could not compre- 
hend, or comprehending, thought to be 
just because established in custom and 
by law. Losing their foot hold upon 
the earth they flocked to the cities or 



'k 



way and lane, dirty and deformed chil- 
dren, Kate Crowley lives, a widow tor 
nine years past. She finishes men's 
drawers at ten cents a dozen pair. She 



begins work at 6 o'clock in the morning roamed at large, gathering rags and mis- 
and sometimes manages to finish two ery and desperation as they went. History, 
dozen before dark. they say, repeats itself. Our "Common- 
Here is neither life, liberty, nor the weal armies had their prototypes in an- 
pursuit of happiness. Poor Kate Crow- cient Rome. Men then banded them- 
ley has neither the one nor the other, selves together precisely as the home- 
And yet our Declaration of Indepen- less and unemployed have done and 
dence says that she possesses an inal- will do to the end. Wealthy Romans 
ienable right to these blessings. That surrounded themselves with private 
is, a right which cannot be taken away, guards just as wealthy Americans are 
But it has been taken from her, beginning to do. i And all because the 
and 20,000 sewing women be- people were despoiied of their homes by 
sides, in New York alone— to say noth- the mortgage "industrjr," and the in- 
ingof the millions of people who though creased value and scarcity of money, 
not yet in so bad a case are rapidly ap- then as now under the complete control 
proaching her condition. These people of the money changers?^; While the 
have not voluntarily surrendered their Romans possessed their little farms 
rights. They have been taken from them they were more than a match for a 



by the exactions and impositions of 
others. 

Thomas Carlyle, one of the deepest 
thinkers of our time, says of modern 
commercial life: "Each grasps what he 
can, and in this hell-scramble because no 
steel knives be used, he calls it Peace, 
because far cunninger implements be And shouting folly hails them from her shore; 
-used." Again he says: "There must Hoards even beyond the miser's wish abound, 
, ... r 1^ n -, And rich men flock from all the world around; 

be something wrong: a full formed ,^ <. ^ .., • ,..-,.. 

& " Sj " ^"^^ iv^iiiA>^vi Yet count our gams: this wealth is but a name 

horse is worth $200 to the world— a man That leaves our useful products still the same. 



world in arms. Deprived of these they 
sank to rise no more. 

Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey 
Tlie rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay— 
'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand 
Between a plundered and a happy laud. 
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, 



HOMKS FOR THE HOMELESS. 



Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride 
Takes up a space that many poor supplied. 
Space for his lake his park's extended bounds, 
Space for his horse, his equipage and his hounds; 
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth 
Has robb'd the neighboring hills of half their 
growth. —Oliver Goldsmith. 

We are travelling the same direful 
road that other peoples have trod. The 
graveyard of nations is even now in 
view. Five years ago — in 1889 — Senator 
Ingalls wrote the following in the 
"Forutn" magazine: "By the close of 
the present century, and perhaps earlier, 
our surplus population, no longer having 
the fertile area of free land over which 
to diffuse itself, will accumlate in cities. 
The rich will grow richer and the poor 
poorer. The middle class will gradu- 
ally disappear as the struggle for exis- 
tence becomes fierce and relentless. A 
dim consciousness of impending peril 
has already penetrated the public mind. 
And the hour is approaching when the 
active coalition of the conservative forces 



of the country will be necessary to pre- 
vent destructive organic changes in our 
social and political system." 

Aye, the hour is approaching, the 
middle class IS disappearing and the 
active coalition of monopolists into one 
party is now in progress. They will 
combine to prevent justice and to defeat, 
right. But no thought of restoring to 
the defrauded and suffering people the 
birth right of which the\- have been 
robbed enters their minds. Steam be- 
gins to escape from the great national 
safety valve and when it is whispered 
that an explosion may come these fool- 
ish monopolists talk only of weighting 
down the valve with an increase in the 
army — then the boiler cannot burst! 

"You may build," said Wendell Phil- 
lips, "your tower of granite; rear it to 
the skies if you will, but if founded upon 
injustice the pulse of a girl will in time- 
shake it down." 



CHAPTER II. 



THE LAMP OF THE PAST. 



The now generally received doctrine 
of the brotherhood of man necessitates, 
and proves, a common origin and fath- 
erhood — the fatherhood of God or the 
great First Cause. And this is clearly 
seen when we examine the records of 
the past with relation to man's personal 
or psychological history. Look, for 
instance, at the phenomena presented 
to us by the life and history of such a 
man as Abraham Ivincoln. The child 
of parents quite low in the intellectual 
scale; his ancestry the common heritage 
of "the poor whites" of Kentucky; sur- 
rounded during all the days of his youth 



by people and influences above whom 
and which he rose superior and pre-em- 
inent, against all the rules of heredity 
and environment. God was his father,, 
and the grand spirit of Lincoln, sullied 
somewhat, no doubt, by earthly and 
fleshly entanglements, was a gift of the 
Great Spirit to his time and to his race. 
And so it has been in the course of all 
the eventful past. We see men con- 
stantly rising from the lowest and most 
forbidding surroundings to the highest 
places in the estimation of men. Nor 
has the mental capacity of man increased 
by the smallest accretion since the dawn. 



HOMKS FOR THE HOMEIvESS. 



9 



of recorded history. The philosophers 
of ancient Greece and Rome, in the pure 
domain of intellect, are still unexcelled 
and unapproached. Man is the same 
creature, swayed by the same hopes and 
fears, moved by the same impulses, 
loves and hates as when he first meets 
our gaze upon the pages of the past. 
"There is under the sun no new thing," 
said Solomon. And again, he tells us 
that "the thing that hath been shall 
be." And this is seen to be true when 
we consider the origin and destiny of 
man. As men have done in the past, so, 
under like circumstances, will they do 
in the future. This is human experi- 
ence, and the foundation of all our 
knowledge regarding man. 

Those who, heeding the lessons of the 
past take a somewhat somber view of 
the future are usually denounced as 
destructionists, if they speak or publish, 
by the unthinking, and by those who 
for the time receive temporary, personal 
or pecuniary advantage fiom present 
conditions which bear hardly upon the 
majority of men. But is it not the part 
of wisdom for even those possessed of 
special privilege, to examine carefully 
into the grounds of the present deep 
seated unrest which has taken possession 
of the public mind? It is idle to say 
that this is the work of "agitators." 
Prosperous and happy men cannot be 
made dissatisfied, except in few and un- 
important instances. But a sense of 
injustice, coming from what Blackstone 
calls "the natural and instinctive appre- 
hension of justice having universal lodg- 
ment in the heart of man," will cause it, 
and ought to do so. And this "instinct- 
ive apprehension of justice," which 
Blackstone again tells us is "the founda- 
tion of all valid law," manifestly comes 
from that other instinctive apprehension 
of self evident truth: "that all men are 
created equal," by a common Father. 
'Created equal they have equal rights. 
Dissatisfaction and unrest come from 
the practical denial of equal rights and 



the bestowal of special privi eges upon 
the possessors of wealth. This is the 
origin of unrest, and it comes from the 
desire for freedom and advancement im- 
planted in the heart of man bj' the great 
All Father. These foolish accusers do 
the "agitators" too much honor. God 
and nature cause unrest. Can they fight 
against these opponents? 

The association of men together for 
mutual protection and benefit upon a 
large scale — the rise, progress and fall 
of nations— has proceeded in all ages 
upon practically the same general lines. 
First, a rude and hardy people possessed 
of little wealth, have joined themselves 
together for mutual protection and ad- 
vantage. Grown stronger they have be- 
come aggressive, and by conquest have 
become imbued with the ideas connected 
with military power and glory. Pos- 
sessed of power over others — the power 
to absorb the fruits of labor —wealth fol- 
lows, inevitably connected with depriva- 
tion, vice and crime, which when fin- 
ished bring national decay and death. 
Men then fall back to savagery, and the 
round is made from primitive conditions., 
through the ascending and descending 
stages of civilization, back to barbarism 
again. All the nations of antiquity ran 
this course. The poet Byron thus tells 
the universal tale: 

This is the sequel to all human tales, 
'Tis but the same rehersal of the past, 
First freedom, and then glory; when this fails 
"Wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last, 
And history with all her volumes vast hath but 
one page. 

In our own country we see that in the 
comparatively short space of a little 
more than a hundred years wehave gone 
through all these different stages except 
the last, and even this to the careful and 
thoughtful student appears by no means 
impossible. Are the nations of today to 
prove exceptions to the universal rule of 
the past? And why should we believe 
it? 

In all probability no man in all the 
world is more thorotighly informed re- 



i 



lO 



HOMES P'OR THE HOMELESS. 



gardiug the history of past attempts to 
associafe and govern the l;uman race 
than William Ewert Gladstone, late 
prime minister of England. A thor- 
oughly educated classical scholar, fa- 
miliar with the modern and the ''dead" 
languages, daily pursuing critical and 
exhaustive studies, and at the same time 
occupying the highest places in the 
English government, he has for more 
than fifty years been a student, devoting 
himself largely to problems of govern- 
ment. In an interview published a few 
years ago, this, perhaps the most emi- 
nent living man, gave utterance to the 
guarded opinion that we in this age of 
the world have reached the highest state 
©f which men of today are capable. He 
I believed that we are incapable of further 
' material advancement, and that the race 
must once more begin a return to prim- 
itive conditions. Of course he did not 
think that men are at once to return to 
■barbarism, but simply that the lime of 
retrogression and national decay had 
come, or shortly would appear. He 
founded this opinion upon the teachings 
of history, and also upon the known law 
pervading the whole vast universe of 
God, in which every created thing has 
its time of creation or beginning, its 
time of growth its time of maturity and 
fruition, and itstimeof decay and death. 
To this law of nature there has never ex- 
isted any exception. 

To such an opinion as this men must 
give heed. It will not do for pompous 
and prosperous ignorance to call this 
the dream of a crack-brained philoso- 
pher or the utterances of a pessimist. 
These are the words of soberness and 
truth, and deserving of the most serious 
and careful consideration. 

^^ The one destructive agent always pres- 
■ ent in the decay and death of nations, 
has been the fact everywhere observed, 
of the the loss on the part of the com- 
mon people of their little farms and 
homes. Indeed, this has been the prin- 
cipal cause; this sent them roaming 



abroad; this crowded them into the 
cities, those plague spots of so-called civ- 
ilization; this destroyed former inde- 
pendence, making them dependent upon 
the will of a master. This begat in- 
equality, a consequent sense of injustice, 
and finally overthrew the state. 

In the oldest book of which we have 
any knowledge we see that Moses, who 
was "learned in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptian?," and who was doubtless fa- 
miliar with mortgage, foreclosure and 
eviction in that land — then of vast an- 
tiquity, — from whence he came, pro- 
vided against the evils of laud monopoly 
by suitable regulations, and by the insti- 
tution of the "year of jubilee." So long 
as these laws were obeyed there was no 
poverty among the Jews. The "Old 
Testament" has been quite truthfully 
described as a work on land tenure, so 
clearly have the sacred writers seen that 
man's temporal welfare and happiness 
are bound up in his possession of a suf- 
ficient portion of the earth s surface for 
self support. And it may be shortly 
stated that if the laws of Moses relating 
to land were put in force in the United 
States that poverty here would likewise 
be impossible. But there came a time 
when these laws were not enforced, and 
when gold was permitted, as now, to 
rule over and enslave human souls. 

The following from the fifth chapter 
of Nehemiah will prove that four hun 
dred and fifty years before Christ people 
were despoiled of their homes just as 
thev are today. Making due allowance 
for tlie different forms of language used 
il is a perfect copy of the doings of to- 
day, save and except the "restitution" 
requiring nothing of them — repudiation 
— compelled by the ruler Nehemiah. 
Alas! we have no Nehemiah today. It 
will be noted that one per cent, or the 
hundredth part, was usury then: 

1. And there was a great cry of the people 
and their wives against their brethren the Jews. 

2. For there were that said, we, our sons and 
our daughters are many, therefore we take up 
corn for them that we may eat and live 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



3. Sr)me also fhere were that said, we have 
mortgaged our lauds, vineyards and houses that 
we might buy corn because of the dearth. 

4. There were also that said, we have borrowed 
money for the King's tribute, and that upon our 
lands and vineyards. 

5. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our 
brethren, our children as their children; and lo 
we bring into bondage our sons and our daugh- 
ters to be servants, and some of our daughters 
are brought into bondage already, neither is it 
in our power to redeem them; for other men 
have our lands and vineyards. 

6. And I was very angry when I heard their 
cry and these words. 

7. Then I consulted with myself and I re- 
l)uked the nobles and the rulers and I said unto 
them. Ye exact usury every one of his brother. 
And I set a great assembly against them. 

8. And I said unto them: We after our ability 
liave redeemed our brethren the Jews which 
were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even 
sell your brethren? Or shall they be sold with 
us? Then held they their peace and found 
nothing to answer. 

9. Also, I said it is not good, that ye do. 
Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God, 
because of the reproach of the heathen our 
enemies. 

10. I likewise, and my brethren and my serv- 
ants, might exact of them money and corn; I 
pray you let us leave off this usury. 

11. Restore, I pray you, to them, even this 
■day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive 
yards and their houses, also the hundreth part 



of their money and of the corn, the wine and 
the oil that ye exect of them. 

12. Then said they, we will restore them, and 
will require nothing of them, so will we do as 
thou say est. Then I called the priests and took 
an oath of them that they should do according 
to this promise. 

13. Also I shook my lap and said so God 
shake out every man from his house and from 
his labor, that performeth not this promise, 
even thus be he shaken out and emptied. And 
all the congregation said Amen, and praised the 
I,ord. And the people did according to this 
promise. 

Buckle, tlie learned and talented 
author of "The History of Civilization" 
tells us that history proves that so long 
as the hearts of the people are true and 
sound that the future of that nation is 
safe, but that whenever people have be- 
come corrupted that for that nation 
there is no salvation except through the 
agonies of a revolution which must be 
severe enough to destroy all the offend- 
ing causes. 

In this land of universal suffrage the 
crowd upon the street represents very 
fairly our population and our governing 
force. Is it sound and true, and is our 
future safe? 



CHAPTER III. 



EARLY LAND REFORMERS. 



"Whether on life's peaceful plain, 

Or in the battle's van, 
The only fight that's not in vain 

Is when we fight for man," 

One of the grandest thoughts that can 
€ome to man is the conviction, born of 
intensest truth, that no good deed can 
ever come to naught. The doer may be 
subjected to sorrow, suffering and the 
most cruel death, but the deed will live. 
A mental or soul force has been set in 



motion which cannot die. Somehow, 
somewhere, it will assert itself, bringing 
joy and peace in its train. And even 
the unknowja acts and unheeded words 
of humble souls unknown to fame still 
live in the lives of man made possible 
by the sweet influences proceeding from 
friendly hands and honest hearts long 
since mouldered into dust. Good is 
eternal. 

In the early history of Rome each 



12 HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 

family held as its private possession a army, drawn from the poorer classes^ 
small homestead. Each son as he came mutinied and civil war was at hand. We 
of age appears to have been assigned a can readily see from this — which is a 
portion of the common lands belonging simple transcript and synopsis ofapor- 
to the particular tribe or community to tion of Roman history — that our history 
which he belonged. These common runs in lines exactly paralel to that of 
lands formed the main possession of the the past. 

communities, and it appears that they The first agrarian outbreak occurred 
were, in some degree at least, cultivated nearly five hundred years B. C. A cen- 
in common as well as devoted to pastur- tury later civil war was averted and the 
age. The state also held common lands, evil partially remedied by the passage of 
acquired very largely by conquests from the Ivid'nian laws which restricted own- 
conquered neighbors. These lands were ership. Gradually, however, these fell 
sometimes let for rent and sometimes into "inocuous desuetude" and poverty 
seem to have been divided among the like an armed host held sway over the 
conquerors. In the process of time lives and destinies of the common peo- 
many of the homesteads became greatly pie. 

and most unequally enlarged. The pro- In the second century B. C. two boys 
gress of conquest, which enlarged the were born who during their life time 
territory, also added slaves, captured in made earnest and heroic efforts for the 
battle, who complicated the problem relief of the distressed and poverty-^ 
and increased inequality. Trade, which stricken citizens. Two thousand years- 
with enlarged territory and increasing have passed yet no generous minded 
wants gradually sprang up, made many man can read today of the life 
fortunes and rapidly increased the and times of the Gracchi without being 
trouble. As time passed and luxury in- himself warmed into newness of life by 
creased the large land-holder was sur- the story of their attempt. The deeds 
rounded by a household of clients, re- of these reformers are even now instinct 
tainers and slaves who tilled his ground with life. 

and performed personal service for him. .'/ Tiberius Sempronius, and Caius Grac- 
Demand for free labor, as a consequence, |chus, the brothers referred to, were of 
fell off and the small cultivator, unable noble family, themselves far removed 
to favorably dispose of his surplus pro- from want. Their ancestry was eminent, 
duce or his labor, quite naturally fell Cornelia, their mother, is to this day 
into debt. His land would then be referred to as the highest type of the 
seized under the strict Roman law of noble Roman matron. She was the 
bankruptcy and he himself would sink daughter of Publius Scipio, the re- 
into slavery, or, at best, into the al- nowned commander who defeated Han- 
ready over crowded class of laborers for ibal and saved Rome from destruction 
insufficient hire. At the same time the at the hands of the Carthaginian in- 
conquered lands, which in theory were vaders. Tiberius and Caius were the 
the property of the state, and to which boys which she displayed as "her 
every citizen had equal right, were jewels" to the boasting wife of a Roman 
largely portioned out among existing millionaire. Of noble mothers noble 
land holders or the favorites ®f those in men are born. Tiberius was but a young 
authority. The revenues drawn from man when he entered public life. Sur- 
tribute were also farmed out to capital- rounded as he was by the evidences of 
ists and the taxes on the public were in- injustice on the part of the favored 
creased because of the frauds, which ap- classes he early took up the cause of the 
pear to have been winked at and per- poor and the friendless. The Tribunes 
mitted of the collectors. Finally, the of the people were established in the 



HOMES FOR THE HOMEIyESS. 



13 

selves many believed this artful lie. 
Finally, a band of young lords rushed 
from the senate-house, struck down the 
Tribune with their bludgeons and killed 
three hundred of his followers. Here 
was the muttered thunder of an ap- 
proaching storm. Tiberius Gracchus 
fell, the first martyr to the contest of 
the classes. 

The vacancy in the land commission 
was, however, filled and the work went 
on for some years substantially as Tiber- 
ius had planned. But at every step the 
partisans of the land-holders interposed 
their power to prevent the success of the 
reforms. Finally, the senate tried to 
stop the progress of reform by dispersing 
the reformers. The energetic pair Caius 
Gracchus and Fulvins Flaccus were sent 
out of the country upon foreign missions 
of importance to Rome. But in 121 B. 
C. Caius Gracchus returned to take up 
his brother's work in Rome. He seems 
to have been a man of far greater genius 
than his brother Tiberius and his re- 
forms looked beyond the relief of the 
poorer citizens to a genuine revision of 
the political conditions at Rome, He 
was elected Tribune for the year 123 and 
again for the following year. The leg- 
islation of this brief period is a monu- 
ment to his tremendous energy. But 
the hate of the wealthy classes was fully 
aroused. The senate put up as candi- 
date for the Tribunate, Ivivius Drusus, 
who promised the people more favors 
than Gracchus could offer and the fool- 
ish and fickle people deserted their friend 
in his time of trial, just as their kind 
always have done, and will to the end. 
In the elections for 121 B. C. Gracchus 
was defeated. A few friends rallied to 
in case he should lose the protection of his defense on the Aventiue Hill, but 



first and purer days of the Roman re- 
public for the protection of the common 
people, or the plebeans, for the Roman 
people were divided, in the main, into 
two general orders or classes, the patric- 
ians or nobles and the plebeans or com- 
mon people. After a time the equaliza- 
tion, in theory at least, of the two or- 
ders was effected and the reason for the 
existence of the tribunate vanished, but 
the office remained and Tribunes were 
every year elected by the piebean com- 
munities. Burning with a desire to re- 
store the ancient rights and privileges 
of the Roman people Tiberius offered 
himself as a candidate and was elected 
Tribune for the year 133 B. C. and im- 
mediately proposed his measures of re- 
form. Substantially, these were as fol- 
lows: That all public lands privately 
occupied should revert to the state; that 
a commission composed of three men 
should determine all questions of pro- 
prietorship and should allow each occu- 
pier to retain not more than from 500 to 
1,000 jugera — from 300 to 600 acres — and 
should distribute the rest of the re- 
covered domain among the citizens and 
their allies in war, awarding homestead 
farms of about eighteen acres to worthy 
applicants. This was wise and just but 
the way to its enforcement was hard and 
bitterly fought by the aristocrats. The 
Roman senate, or governing body, 
packed with landed nobles refused to 
acquiesce, but Tiberius backed by the 
people finally prevailed. The law was 
passed and he was named as one of the 
commissioners. They encountered vio" 
lent opposition from the land holders 
and Tiberius, whose year of office was 
now expiring, feared the consequences 



his official title. He seems to have 
been led astray by the dangers of his 
position and to have made high bids for 
popularity and re-election. The parti- 
sans of the senate postponed the election 
and raised the cry that Gracchus would 
be King. Judging Tiberius by them- 



his opponents, who called themselves 
"Optimates" — how like the present — 
broke down the barricades. Caius with 
a single slave succeeded in crossing the 
river Tiber, and in a grove on the farther 
shore their pursuers found the dead 
bodies of both. With the death of the 



34 HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS 

Gracchi ended all sincere efforts for re- 
form. It is true that a generation later 
Cains Julius Caesar made some effort in 
the same direction, but it wpq then too 
late. The "great estates," which Pliny 
iells us destroyed Rome, were unbroken, 
while millions were denied the right of 
access to land and weEgJ;feus doomed to 
deprivation, degradation and death. 
Wiser than their time, the Gracchi died, 
but they were indeed "jewels" of whom 
Cornelia, and the world, 
proud. 



race is wiser 



'^'Tlie man is thought a knave or fool, or bigot 

plotting crime, 
Who for the advancement of his 
than his time; 
For him the hemlock shall distil, 

For him the axe be bared, 
For him the gibbet shall be built, 

For him the stake prepared. 
Him shall the wrath and scorn of men 

Pursue with deadly aim, 
And malice, envy, spite and lies 
Shall desecrate his name, 



But truth shall conquer at the last 
For round and round we run, 

And ever the right comes uppermost 
And ever is justice done." 

What a shame it is that progress has 
ever been only from stake to stake and- 
from scaffold to scaffold. Read history! 
it is but a succession of wars. "Expe- 
rience keeps a de^r school but fools will 
learn in no other;" And most people 
are fools in the sense that they 
will only learn from their own 
may well be experience. Though experience were 
knee deep about them, if it be the expe- 
rience of others, they will not heed. 
The truth is, however, no nation, ever 
was — or ever will be — strong, free, brave, 
contented, happy, unless the people 
were secure in the possession of their 
homes. No homes, no men; no men 
no nation. Free access to the soil is the 
source of strength. But access must be 
free; it must not be burdened with rent. 
Plenty of land to rent today. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 



Under the operation of laws which 
permitted, and practically enforced, 
land monopoly the Roman people be- 
came demoralized. The common peo- 
ple were dependent, they lost courage 
and self reliance and gradually sank 
lower and lower in the social and moral i 
scale. At the same time the wealth and| 
luxury of the privileged few increased^ 
beyond previous example. As the fields 
of the wealthy grew larger and larger 
their power became greater and greater. 
Some became enormously wealthy and 
surrounded themselves with luxurious 
appointments upon a scale of magnifi- 



cence and grandeur which excited the 
envy of all. These, of course, refused 
to believe in the decadence ot the times, 
although the masses of the people were 
reduced to slavery or beggary. In their 
eyes the Gracchi were only "unprinci- 
pled adventurers" or "pestilent fellows" 
who richly deserved their fate. We 
have seen that they called themselves 
"Optimates." The world was well 
enough if you only knew how to take 
it. They pointed to the vast increase of 
Roman wealth and magnificence as a 
proof of advancing knowledge and 
power, forgetful of the fact that the 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 15 

strength and happiness of a nation must world," and contemporary history seems 
be measured by adherence to the rule of to bear out this seemingly extravagant 
the greatest good to the greatest num- praise. His "Commentaries" may yet 
ber. One of their emperors boasted that be read. He says of the Germans of his 
he found Rome of brick and left it of time: "They are not much given to ag- 
marble. The condition of the common riculture but live chiefly upon milk, 



people, however, gave him little concern. 
Because their wealth could hire and arm 
a mercenary soldiery the rich fancied 
themselves the masters of the world and 
secure in their robberies, as our masters 
do today. But the canker of ill-gotten 
wealth had eaten out the heart of Ro- 
man patriotism and courage. The Ger- 
manic tribes tiring of the constant for- 
age of the Romans upon their country 
turned the tables upon them and de- 
scended upon Rome. The opposition of 
purchased lives proved weak and inef- 
fectual, for the manhood of ancient 
Rome was gone, and it fell, at a time, 
too, when according to the views of its 
wealthy citizens it was at the very 
heighth of civilized enlightenment. 

ni fares the land,^to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men deca5', 
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made, 
But a bold 3-eomanry, their country's pride, 
"When once destroyed can never be supplied. 
—Goldsmith. 

Having in the previous chapter very 
hastily glanced at the tenure of land, and 
the abuses arising from il, among the 
Romans, let us look for a moment at the 
system in use among the northern peo- 
ple that overthrew and destroyed them. 
Caius Julius Caesar was indeed "a 
great man;" perhaps the greatest, ac- 
cording to the usual standards, for he 
was not only an unrivalled militarv com- 
mander but a statesman of the greatest 
ability, a magnficent orator, a man of 
deep research and wide learning and a 
writer of singular power and force, and 
last, but not least, he is said, as military 
. commander to have assisted in the de- 
struction of three millions of lives. 
: Great murderers always excite the ad- 
- miration of men, Shakespeare calls 
vhim "the foremost man of all this 



cheese and flesh. No one has a fixed 
quantity of land, or boundaries of his 
property, but the magistrates and chiefs 
every year assign to the communities 
and fa^'ilies who live t'^o-ether ?,s i?ii"ich 
land and in such spots as they think 
suitable and require them in the follow- 
ing year to remove to another allotment. 
Many reasons for this custom are sug- 
gested : One is that they should not be 
led by permanence of residence to re- 
nounce the pursuits of war for agricul- 
ture; another, that the desire of exten- 
sive possession should not induce the 
more powerful to seize the land of the 
weaker; another, that they should not 
construct their houses with greater care 
to keep out heat and cold; another, that 
the love of money should not create 
parties and disputes, and lastly that the 
mass of the people might remain con- 
tented with the justice of an arrange- 
ment under which ever}- one saw his po- 
sition as comfortable as that of the most 
powerful." 

A hundred years later, but still prev- 
ious to the time when they conquered 
Rome, Tacitus, the Roman historian, 
describes their mode of life and tenure 
of land. Some changes seem to have 
been made. He speaks of Germany as: 
"Covered with woods and morasses, the 
land fairly fertile, well adapted to pas- 
turage and carrying numerous herds of 
small sized polled cattle in wbich the 
chief wealth of the natives consisted." 
But they seem no longer to have changed 
their actual dwellings each year but to 
have "built them with a certain rough 
solidity, and in villasjes, though the 
houses were not contiguous, but each 
was surrounded by a space of its own. 
The right of succession by children was 
recognized, and in default of children 
brothers and uncles took, but there was 



i6 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



no right of making a will. They pre- 
ferred to acquire property by war than 
industry." As Tacitus was a Roman 
and strongly prejudiced against the peo- 
ple he was describing, this latter allega- 
tion may be doubted. "Interest on 
loans," he says, ''was unknown." The 
land was apportioned (to villages prob- 
ably) according to the number of culti- 
vators and divided among them accord- 
ing to their rank, there being room 
enough for all. Every year they 
changed the arable land, which formed 
only a portion of the whole, not attempt- 
ing to make labor vie with the natural 
abundance and fertility of the soil. Their 
food consisted, principally of wild 
fruits, freshly killed game and curds; 
their drink was liquor prepared froiu 
barley or wheat, and fermented like 
wine." (German beer seems to have 
been of ancient origin.) "Their slaves 
were not kept in the house but each 
had a separate dwelling and they were 
treated with humanity as servants and 
tenants." 

When it is remembered that the ac- 
counts of both Caesar and Tacitus were 
written by Romans who despised the 
"barbarians" and who had no idea of 
treating the people of other nations in 
any other way than as slaves or subjects 
it will be seen that the conquerors of 
Rome must ha^re been a very fair lot of 
people — for the time. Moderns have 
wasted a vast deal of sympathy on the 
Roman people on account of their being 
swept out of existence by "barbarians," 
who, so far as we are able to judge, were 
much to be preferred to the Roman 
thieves, who, unquestionably, having 
endeavored to subjugate their neigh- 
bors by means of a dissolute soldiery, 
were paid in their own coin in return. 
The accounts we have of the "incurs- 
ions of ihe barbarians" are all from Ro- 
man sources. 

Rome fell, not too soon, for it was rot- 
ten ripe long years before it succumed 
to a stronger, a hardier and a more hon- 
est people. Given, two such peoples. 



side by side, the one strong, free, brave, 
and free to apply labor to land; the 
other corrupted by venal and profligate 
wealth, having no hold upon the soil 
except upon sufferance from vain and 
purse-proud magnates and but one re- 
sult could follow. Moral force is, and 
always has been, a mighty power in the 
world. When the war of the rebellion 
broke out one "Billy" Wilson raised a 
regiment from among the New York 
"toughs." Foolish people then said: 
*'When Wilson's Zouaves get down 
South something will happen, for they 
are terrors." But the only thing they 
were ever known to "punish" was "red 
liquor" and as for fighting rebels they 
were of no value. The fighting was 
done, forts assaulted and the "iminent 
deadly breach" carried by farmer's boys 
who had never before been beyond the 
confines of their own counties and who 
were reared in contact with nature and 
in much the same manner as the an- 
cient Germans, known to the Romans as 
Goths and Vandals. 

These principles are not new, the Ro- 
mans knew them well enough but they 
were led captive by unprincipled leaders 
just as our people are to-day. In all 
ages broad minded and far-seeing men 
have not hesitated to declare that the 
right of access to land in some free and 
independent way is absolutely necessary 
to the creation of strong and stable na- 
tions and men, and that in no other way 
can freedom and the rights of men be 
preserved. Thousands of years ago this 
was as well known and understood as it 
is to-day. The myths and mythology of 
the most ancient peoples conclusively 
prove it. In the mythology of Greece 
and Rome this truth was expressed in 
the fabled story of Antaeus, a giant, or 
renowned athlete, who was said to 
be the son of Neptune and Terra 
(sea and earth, or land and water.) 
He inhabited the Lybian desert (where 
land was free) and successfully wrestled 
against all comers, for whenever thrown 
to the ground he received fresh accession 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



17 



of strength from mother earth, rising 
stronger than ever from his contact with 
the soil. Hercules, however — the crafty 
god of strength, a sorl. of deified bully — 
detecting the source of his strength, 
held him up in his arms and strangled 
him in the air — so ran the tale. 

Doubtless the common people among 
the Greeks and Romans, to whom the 
priests told this story of the gods, 
believed it true and thought Antaeus a 
real character, but the better educated 
among them probably knew perfectly 
well that this story contained one of the 
greatest truths — probably the most im- 
portant to man's temporal welfare — 
which it is possible to state. Antaeus 
symbolized the human race, which de- 
prived of its hold upon the soil is quickly 
weakened and destroyed. The city must 
be constantly recruited from the coun- 
try. By contact with nature only does 
man become strong and resourceful. 
The first thing for ihe youth to learn is 
above all things self-reliance. This he 
must have, to be a man, whatever else he 
may lack. For it there is no possible sub- 
stitute. Without it he must have a mas- 
ter. He is not fit for freedom and to de- 
pendence and slavery will he naturally 
and certainly descend. Now, as anciently, 
and ever, man's health, strength and 
virility come from contact with the soil. 
Life is a struggle, a school, a test of fit- 
ness. No struggle, no school; no 
school, no fitness; no fitness, no future. 
I find the following in a newspaper. 
It is as true a statement as was ever 
made, come from what source it may. 

"David Starr Jordan, president of 
Stanford University says, in the Popular 
Science Monthly, that "the essence of 
tyranny lies not in the strength of the 
strong, but in the weakness of the weak." 
The remedy for oppression is in men 
who cannot be oppressed. "This was 
the remedy our fathers sought; we shall 
find no other." "The problem in life is 
not to make life easier, but 'o make men 
stronger." "It will be a sad day for tie 
Republic when life is easy for ignorance, 
weakness and apathy." It is by indi- 
vidual will, that the thousands in this 



country, who complain of oppression 
will become free. So long as they con- 
tinue in their ignorance and squalor 
they cannot become free under any laws. 
They need first to improve t}ieir minds, 
which can only be done by individual 
efifort, to escape from weakness and 
misery and become better men, who 
cannot be oppressed.'" 

Man's life upon this earth is governed 
by certain unchangeable laws, fixed in 
the decrees of Nature; men make no 
new ones; they only discover them. 
Having discovered them, if the course of 
their lives and their statutory enact- 
ments are in consonance therewith, hap- 
piness is the result, otherwise humanity 
pays the fixed and certain penalty. 
Statute law is like its makers, very im- 
perfect. 

Before the law was written down with parch- 
ment or with pen; 

Before the law made citizens, the moral law 
made men. 

Law stands for human rights, but when it fails 
those rights to give, 

Then let law die, my brother, but let human 
beings live. 

All wealth — which is the only remedy 
for poverty — ;s created by the applica- ; 
tion of human exertion to land, or its- 
natural products. If men are denied ac- 1 
cess to land they are then unable to I 
create wealth for themselves. If they 
work for others the profits of their labor 
are taken from them. This, in short, is 
the sole origin of great wealth on the 
one side and poverty on the other. No 
man accumulates large wealth unless he 
is enabled in some crafty way to obtain 
the fruits of other men's labor. If ac- 
ce:?s to land is open to ail, men cannot 
be forced to work for insufiQcient pay,, 
they are then free to work for them- 
selves. If men possess their little self- 
supporting homesteads, free from debt 
and taxation, they are then free, strong, 
brave and inclined to make much of 
their independence when in the pres- 
ence of those who may try to impose 
upon them. No tyranny like that of 
the land "owner." He has greater 
power over those who attempt to use 



i8 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



"his land" than has an emperor over him to "get even" with you is for him 

his subjects. Hence the present attempt, to get his gun and kill you and then 

by means of ''the moHgage industry," kill himself. Remember, I do not ad- 

which will surely succeed, to deprivejthe vise such a course, I oppose it, but it is 

common people of this country of their the only way in which he can at once 

homes. Then man can be ''managed." get even with you. Any other way re- 

If you want to get "the dead cinch" on quires time. The plan has this defect, 

a man you b.y bis land from under him. however — you are both dead. 
Then he is done. The only way left for 



CHAPTER V. 



EVOLUTION OF A GREAT CRIME. 



Land- holding began when men first 
gathered in tribes or clans. Each tribe 
held some sort of sway over a general 
region, more or less distinctly defined. 
Within these limits each individual be- 
longing to the tribe held, substantially, 
the same right. The authority of the 
leader or chief, in time of peace, was 
usually merely nominal; he might or he 
might not possess a greater amount of 
personal property than the average 
clansman, but to the land over which 
the tribe hunted and trapped he had no 
greater claim than any other member. 
Men then lived principally by the chase, 
they dressed in skins and their food con- 
sisted of flesh, wild fruits, nuts and the 
natural productions of the soil. This 
condition of things we see perpetuated 
in the habits of the North American In- 
dians to this day. History and tradi- 
tion take u$ back to a time when nearly 
all of Europe was thus held by a sparse 
population of wild and fierce men. The 
next stage in the progress of civilization 
we can yet see depicted in the habits of 
the Tartar hordes upon the plains of 
central Asia. Population has somewhat 
increased; game has largely disappeared 



and its place has been taken by herds of 
cattle, sheep and horses. The inhabi- 
tants spend their time in moving their 
cattle from place to place, not forget- 
ting to engage, by way of diversion, in 
murderous forays upon their neighbors 
killing them and running oflf their stock, 
or, they defend their own from like in- 
cursions on the part of others; but noth- 
ing like private property in land yet ap- 
pears. Substantially, this was the con- 
dition of affairs among the Germanic 
tribes, as related by Caesar, some 2,000 
years ago. Time passes and the next 
stage gradually comes on. In this, for 
greater power in war abroad and greater 
security at home, larger combinations 
embracing greater numbers of men are 
formed, some sort of central authority 
is set up and everything is made to de- 
pend upon force, or military power. 
Under this rule might makes right and 
the rule of law is established: "The 
king can do no wrong." This survives 
in our jurisprudence to this day. (Under 
this, courts hold that no court can ac- 
knowledge that it has made a mistake.) 
The land is now said to belong to the 
lord, count or duke who may happen to 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



19 



liold sway in that vicinity — principal!}'- 
because he is the only one who can sum- 
mon force enough to take whatever- he 
may desire to have or hold. This gen- 
eral condition of affairs prevailed 
throughout all Europe during the mid- 
dle ages, so-called. The condition of 
the common people, however, varied 
very much in different localities and 
countries. If they happened to have **a 
good" king he treated his subjects with 
leniency, perhaps only calling out his 
people to aid him in war, leaving them 
comparatively free to cultivate land and 
rear soldiers for him in time of peace. 
At other times and in other lands the 
common people were simply slaves and 
subject to the whims and caprices of an 
absolute master. The following is taken 
from a standard historical account of 
•'the middle ages:" 

"The sovereign represented the state: 
to him, in that capacitv, land conquered 
from the enemy, or forfeited by unsuc- 
cessful rebellion, became subject and he 
granted it to his followers on condition 
of faithful service in war. They prom- 
ised to be "his men" and from their 
own tenants they e-sacted in turn the 
like promise on like conditions. The 
general insecurity made even free own- 
ers willing to buy the support of the 
sovereign on similar terms. Thus, by 
degrees, less by derivation from ideas of 
Roman law, to which it is sometimes 
attributed, than by the mere necessity 
of the times and as a consequence of the 
incei-sant state of warfare in which man- 
kind existed, there came to be establish- 
ed t'le feudal doctrine that all land was 
held of the sovereign on condition of 
suit and service, and that each immedi- 
ate tenant of the sovereign was entitled 
to sub-infeudate his possession on the 
same principles. Gradually the further 
attributes of properly were added: Ser- 
vice in war was commuterl into rent and 
the peaceful service of tilling the lord's 
reserved domain. The right of heredi- 
tary succession became grafted on the 
personal grant: the power of sale and 
device followed. Local usage still had 
influence but it may be said, broadly, 
that from about the tenth century pri- 
vate property, subject to feudal condi- 
tions became the principle of the tenure 
of land in Europe."— Encyclopedia Brit- 
tanica. 



In 1066 William the Norman invaded 
and conquered England, killing King 
Harold and di^perRing his followers at 
the famous battle of Hastings, October 
14, 1066. Thenceforward the land of 
England was held to belong to him as 
William I, king of England, by the 
grace of God." He parceled out 
the greater portion of the soil among 
his favorites, upon promised service. 
And to this day this flat robbery is the 
source of the title to land not only in all 
England but to a very great extent in 
"this land of the free and home of the 
brave." 

For proof read the following, in which 
Blackstone states the English law: 

It became a fundamental and neces- 
sary principle (though in reality a mere 
fiction) of our English tenures that the 
king is the universal lord and original 
' proprietor of all the land in his king- 
|dom; and that no man doth or can pos- 
sess any part of it but what has medi- 
ately or immediately been derived as a 
gift from him to be held on feudal ten- 
ure." — Blackstone's Commentaries, II, 
51- 

"All the land in the kingdom is sup- 
posed to be hold©n mediately or imme- 
diately of the king who is styled the 
lord paramount, or above all." — Black 
stone's Commentaries, II, 59. 

As our laws proceed almost directly 
from English sources they repeat the 
same general line of reasoning. Chan- 
cellor Kent says: 

"It is a settled and valid doctrine with 
us that all valid tital to land w'.thin the 
United States is derived from the grant 
of our local government or from that of 
the United States, or from the crown or 
royal chattered governments established 
here previous to the revolution." 
•X- * * * 

"It was held to be a settled doctrine 
that the courts could not take notice of 
any title to land not derived from our 
own state or colonial governments and 
duly verified by patent. This was also 
a fundamental principle in the colonial 
jurisprudence. All titles to land passed 
to individuals from the crown through 
the colonial corporations and the colo- 
nial or proprietor}' authorities." — Kent's 
Commentaries, II, 37S. 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



We liave now traced our "paper titles" 
back to their origin in force and fraud. 
In this way the unorganized multitude 
has been cheated out of its just right 
to the soil. By the soil all men may live. 
Without this right they exist upon suflFer- 
ance of the fraudulent and the crafty, 
who in real truth possess no moral, no 
just title to land which they do not oc- 
cupy and use. 

"Bob" Ingersol is a lawyer of large 
ability who has made a study of land 
tenure. He says: 

"No man should be allowed to own 
any land that he does not use. Every- 
body knows that I do not care whether 
he has thousands or millions. I have 
owned a great deal of land, but I know 
just as well as I know that I am living 
that I should not be allowed to have it 
unless I use it." 

Blackstone states clearly enough the 
fact that occupancy and use is the only 
just title to land and yet he was, it 
seems, constrained to legalize what he 
states, is "in reality a mere fiction," that 
is, that the king — or the government — 
"is the universal lord and original pro- 
prietor" of land. Sir William Black- 
stone was under the control of a king, 
therefore he says that this "mere fic- 
tion" has "become a func'amental and 
necessary principle," that is, funda- 
mental and necessary to the existence 
of the king. But he knows this is not 
right and so states. 

Thomas Jefferson, in many respects 
the greatest man America has produced, 
states the true fundamental doctrine in 
the Declaration of Independence: 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that 
all men are created equal; that they are en- 
dowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 
rights. 

This is plain. Rights come from God, 
from the Creator of the world, and the 
fool who thinks that some bastard king 
of hundreds of years agone had power 
to grant land, to usurp the place of 
Deity, is a fool indeed. By the way, 
William was a bastard in fact, as you 
will see by looking up his history. The 



land belongs to its Creator. He has 
placed men upon this earth — they did 
not bring themselves — they are the chil- 
dren of the great First Cause, who sO' 
far as we can see, has given to"all men"" 
equal rights — or he has given none.. 
Men are not equal in stature or in men- 
tal power but in respect of their rights 
they are equal. And men's rights ap- 
pertain to those natural opportunities — 
that is, the earth in a state of nature — 
which Infinite Power has provided for 
the use and sustenance of "all men." 
To the bounties of a common Father alii 
children are entitled — or none are.. 
Whence, then, comes the title of the- 
privileged few? Let the poet answer: 

Whence think'st thou kings and parasites arose? 
Whence that unnatural line of drones who heap 
Toil and unvanquishable penury 
On those who build their palaces, and bring 
Their daily bread? From vice, black loathsome 

vice; 
From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong; 
From all that gerders misery, and makes 
Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust, 
Revenge and murder. And, when Reason's voice 
Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked 
The nations, and mankind perceive that vice 
Is discord, war, and misery— that virtue 
Is peace and happiness and harmony; 
When man's maturer nature shall disdain 
The playthings ol its childhood; kingly glare 
Will lose its power to dazzle; its authority 
Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne 
Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall. 
Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood's trade 
Shall be as hateful and unprofitable 
As that of truth is now. —Shelley, 

Men know, intelligent men in all ages 
have always known, these things, but 
they fear to assert unpopular truths. 
Moral cowards are ma.ny. Many a man 
ready to play the bully fears the finger 
of scorn far more than the bullet of his 
adversary. It has ever been so with the 
average man, and ever will be so to the 
end. The lion hearted Peter declared 
to his Master that though all men 
should forsake him yet would not he. 
But when that Master was apprehended 
and taken in custody Peter stood with- 
out and warmed himself at the fire, for 
the day was cold, and when a poor. 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



weak servant maid charged him with 
knowing Him he denied it with an oath, 
saying, "I know not the man." 

But for cowards the world might at 
once be saved from want and woe and 
wickedness 

This withholding from starving and 
perishing men, women and little chil- 
dren the means of life is the giant crime 
of the ages; upheld, too, by our moral 
and religious teachers, by "good soci- 
ety" and by all the forces of our so- 
called civilization. Not through ignor- 
ance, for all educated men know the 
foundation of it ali to be a lie. A lie 
which must be the most hateful possible 
to that Force, or Power, having cogniz- 
ance of the fathomless misery of the 
weak, the poor and the vicious. 

Adjoining the pretty little city of 
Chico, California, situated in the broad 
and level Sacramento valley, lies the 
baronial domain of John Bidwell, late 
Prohibition candidate for the office of 
president of the United States. It con- 
sists of twenty thousand acres of the 
richest land in the world and lies on 
both sides of the beautifnl little Chico 
creek, extending at right angles to the 
Sacramento, up into the Sierra Nevada 
mountains, some twenty miles away. 
The estate is a wonderlnl one, magnifi- 
cent in its beauties and its capabilities. 
It draws right up to the main street of 
the city and a high arched gate cuts off 
the city street m the midst of the bus- 
iest part of the town. High up over the 
gate a gilded sign bears the legend, 
Rancho Chico, and smaller notices 
abound warning the "trespasser." 



Three or four thousand people are 
clustered about that land, many of them 
half- starved for lack of the means of 
living. Bidwell is terribly afraid thatt 
some of these poor devils will get a drop 
of whiskey and proposes by fire and 
sword — if need be — to prevent it. But 
of the need these people have of bread; 
of their lack of hope in the world; of 
their future outlook, sunk as they are 
in an enlorced poverty, he seems not t@ 
care. 

Did God give Bidwell this land be- 
cause of the wickedness of the poor peo- 
ple about him? Or, is their poverty^ 
weakness and criminality the natural 
result of the crime which society com- 
mits in allowing the system, of whick 
Bidwell is only an exemplar? 

When the children of Israel were in 
the wilderness we read that manna de- 
scended from Heaven and their mouths 
were filled. We are not obliged in this 
to think of a miracle, of the breaking 
of nature's laws, but their wants being 
unexpectedly filled they said manna 
came from Heaven, from an Almighty 
Power — and so it did, as do all things,. 
Suppose that under these circumstances 
some greedy Hebrew, had claimed to 
"own" the land upon which the manna, 
fell, had fenced it in and warned off all 
trespassers. Then when the wretched 
and starving people gathered about him 
had become sick, desperate, aa<l 
drunken, mayhap, if wine could have 
been got, think of this bestial Hebre\r 
aforesaid, undertaking to lecture thetm 
on the sin of drunkenness! 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELKSS. 



CHAPTER VI. 



CENTURY OLD MISTAKES. 



But, I shall be told, one most im- 
portant element in the calculation of 
causes and effects embracing the social 
question has so far been entirely omit- 
ted. Adam Smith, with whom the 
science of political economy began, 
names three factors essential to the pro- 
duction of wealth, towit: Land, labor 
and capital. The latter the most im- 
fportant of the three in any large pro- 
duction of wealth from the well attested 
fact that capital can always provide it- 
self with land and labor, while without 
capital both land and labor are compara- 
tively inefficient, indeed, almost help- 
less. The plain inference being that as 
capital, in any large sense, is almost en- 
tirely the property of the wealthy, 
land and labor are thus rendered en- 
tirely subservient to realized wealth, or 
money. From this it willj still further, 
be drawn, that even though all repress- 
ive enactments be repealed and with- 
drawn and labor be permitted to apply 
Itself to natural opportunities free from 
taxation and repression, still, in this 
event, the result would show labor, 
without the assistance of capital, to be 
alone entirely unable to solve the mo- 
mentous problems of the time. 

To this it may be replied that capital 
is simply "stored labor" — the results of 
previous labor — and if now almost en- 
tirely in the hands of those who did not 
produce it, this of itself shows great in- 
justice and need of radical change. The 
truth is that something more than a 
century ago intelligent and educated 
men began very generally to acknowl- 
edge among themselves that great in- 
justice was being done the then so-called 
lower classes. The result of this fer- 



ment of thought was seen throughout 
the world. Our own revolution, suc- 
ceeded by that of the French, caused 
thrones to totter and the holders of 
special privilege to fear that their day of 
reckoning was close at hand. Fear took 
possession of those who lived upon the 
proceeds of fraud and pretence and for 
the time they knew not which way to 
turn. It so happened that about this 
time a very able Scotchman, devoted 
his talents to bolstering up or legiti- 
matizing the claim of "power and posi- 
tion" to control the wealth which all 
could see was produced by the workers. 
Adam Smith brought out his "Wealth of 
Nations" in 1776. It was hailed with 
delight by the frightened and conscience 
stricken aristocrats, for these had now 
a logical argument for their existence; 
That it was based upon a wrong premise 
they did not perceive. Practically, 
Smith makes the capital of a nation to 
consist mainly of "realized wealth," of 
money, or its stock of gold and silver 
coins. He defines capital as "that part 
of a man's stock which is devoted to the 
production of more wealth." Even ac- 
cording to his own definition the wealth 
of a nation must, then, mainlj^ consist of 
its stock of labor, which is, in fact, the 
true source of a nation's wealth. But 
this while partially admitted is practi- 
cally denied. All production — in his 
theory — being made dependent upon 
"capital" and capital being in the hands 
of the wealthy the power of privilege 
was henceforth assured. The robber of 
labor and the absorber of the fruits of 
production could now rest at ease. They 
had been vindicated by a Doctor of 
Laws. The scholar was now upon their 



side and the poor could nurse 
wrongs in silence. Another x\aron had 
erected a new golden calf and the peo- 
ple worshipped at its shrine. Wealth 
and privilege could now logically take 
their place in advance of human right. 
The doctrines of the Judean Carpenter 
were set at naught. The value of a soul 
was as nothing in comparison with 
pounds sterling. Humanity was cruci- 
fied afresh, and as of old, at the com- 
mand of "the chief priests and elders of 
the people." 

It mnsf be remembered that in Eng- 
land, in Smith's time, the only way for 
a man to "get on in the world" was to 
fawn upon the rich and powerful. This 
is somewhat the case today but to a far 
greater extent then. Smith did this to 
the extent of his ability. Let us see 
how. Adam Smith was bcrn in Kirk- 
caldy Scotland, 1723. His father held a 
small office in the customs service at the 
port of Kirkcaldy. Doubtless he did as 
others of his ilk have done, magnified 
his office and his importance in the pres- 
ence of his son, for this was the manner 
of the son. In 1737 Adam went to the 
Univerity of Scotland and afterward to 
Balliol College, Oxford. He studied 
there seven years. In 1748 he went to 
Edinburg where he gradually became one 
of a little circle of men of letters then 
rising into importance. Here he wrote 
several books and proved himself useful 
to "the powers that be." In 1762 the 
University of Glasgow gave him the de- 
gree of Doctor of Laws. His "thirty 
pieces of silver" had now been paid in 
advance. "In the following year he be- 
came 'governor' " or travelling tutor to 
the young Duke of Buccleuch. He was 
then carefully collecting materials for 
'The Wealth of Nations' and remained 
nearly a year in Paris mixing in the 
circle of renowned wits and philosophers 
of the reign of Louis XV." 

Louis XV was the most corrupt, sen- 
sual and utterly vicious monarch who 
ever ruled over France. His court and 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 23 

could nurse their surroundings were of the most immoral 



and detestable character. This gave 
color to the society of the period, which 
under the influence of the courtezans 
who ruled Louis, was rotten to the core. 
These were the influences surrounding 
Smith. Louis XV sank almost com- 
pletly under the influence of Madame 
Pompadour, to whom he gave notes on 
the treasury amounting to hundreds of 
millions of livres. Indifferent to the ruin 
of his people, and to everything but his 
own vile pleasures the king when told of 
the ruin, misery and discontent of his 
subjects only remarked that the mon- 
archy would last as long as his life and 
continued immersed in sensual pleasures 
and trifling amusements. He boasted 
of being the best cook in France and 
was much gratified when the courtiers 
ate eagerly of the dishes which he had 
prepared. His gifts to Madame Du 
Barry, notwithstanding the poverty of 
his subjects and the embarrassment of 
the finances, amounting in five years to 
more than 180,000,000 livres — $36,000,- 
000. 

Such were the object lessons before 
the eyes of Smith and yet in spite of 
them all he wrote a book which justifies 
and encourages the possessors of capital 
— the "stored labor" of the worker — in 
their continued and never ending robbery 
of labor by means of the manipulation 
of money or "realized wealth." Adam 
Smith was the founder of this sort of 
thing as a separate study — in books. He 
named it "political economy." The 
full title of this book was originally: 
"An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes 
of the Wealth of Nations." It should 
have been: "Stealing Made Justifiable 
and Honorable by the Laws of Nature." 
Aristocrats have made much of Smith 
because his theories deliver humanity 
captive and bound into the hands of 
privileged wealth. 

To the argument which states and en- 
forces the ruling power of capital it may 
be replied that it cannot be true since 



24 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



it makes man with all his vast powers the public. What value would a rail- 

and possibilities the mere servant of road have without a general public to 

"capital," the creature which he has furnish it with business? No population 

created; that it is opposed by all those no business; no business, no value, 

rules of morals termed Christian and Value, it is thus seen, is very largely a 

that it merely attempts to shift the onus public institution and of public creation, 

of robbery from the person of the real To hold value, largely created by the 

robber to the laws of nature. Thus, in public, as private "capital" is to bring 

fact, it charges upon God the deviltry of manhood into bondage to money. This 

man. Hence its popularity. The true is the worship of Mammon, the great 

foundation of this argument, and of anti-Christ. But this is why Smith and 

Smith's book, is the desire on the part his plausible theories are so much val- 

of men pricked in conscience to justify ued by those who in their inmost hearts 

themselves. know themselves as transgressors of the 

Creation, it is agreed by all, is the Christian law of brotherhood, 
highest test of ownership. Suppose — 



for the moment — the wholesale manu- 
facturer to be the sole creator of the 
thing made by his machines and the 
labor of his operatives. Unless other 
men will buy it and consume it, it is 
without value as an article of commerce 
or trade. No demand, no value. And 
he must in this way be dependent upon 
large numbers of people to make the de- 
mand upon which value rests, 
large numbers, then, are in : 
sense his partners in the work of creat- 
ing the values which he appropriates. 
Now, as a matter of fact, he is also 
largely dependent in this upon his oper- 



The public creation of most of the 
great fortunes of the day, now in the 
hands of individuals, can be readily 
proved. As a remedy for this state of 
affairs Socialists propose the abolition 
of pri\ ate property by the erection of 
the social state, in which land and all 
the means of production are supposed 
to be the property of the state, all citi- 
zens sharing equally in the proceeds. 
These This remedy I consider worse than the 
certain disease. The creation of noble, self-re- 
liant, resourceful, masterful men and 
women is the chief and greatest work of 
the world. This work cannot go on, in 
fact is impossible without complete free- 



atives; they furnish the labor, they make dom and the presence of personal re- 

the goods, they create the manufactured sponsibility. Men, to be men, must 

value. Between the people who actu- manage for themselves and feel the 

ally m ke his goods and those who make weight of care coming from a sense of 

a market and demand for them, he is not personal responsibility. Nothing brings 

the great factor in the creation of value character to a boy so quickly as this, 

we have been led to suppose. He is Give a boy something to do in his own 

only a partner. Yet the value thus ere- way and hold him responsible for re- 

ated by labor and public estimation, he suits. This will develop his abilities as 

appropriates. In his hands it becomes nothing else can. Many a man has 



"capital" to be given, by Smiths' theor- 
ies, the power of life or death over im- 
mortal souls! In modern commerce, 
value — which is an estimation of the hu- 



failed as a man because he lacked this 
training, as a boy. Despite the evils of 
competition it cannot be entirely re- 
moved without great harm. By means 



man mind — is created largely by the of the graduated income tax society will 
community — the general public. Kept be able to check the too rapid growth of 
in a desert waste the goods of the man- great fortunes and repress its standard 
ufacturer would possess no value. If oil, railway and other "kings." Society 
the public creates value it belongs to in this way only takes its own. It 



would be an easy matter to show that 
the Vanderbilt and Astor fortunes, for 
instance, are almost wholly the creation 
of the general public. Still, private 
property and personal freedom can not 
be utterly thrust aside. 

But it will hardly be necessary to here 
do more than state that for the purpose 
of the construction of a moderate home 
for the average working man's family, 
capital, in any large sense, is in no wise 
necessary. Given, a few acres of pro- 
ductive soil made the inalienable pos- 
session of the family during life and 
freed from all taxation, and the 
willing muscles of the laboring man and 
his family will be able slowly to accum- 
ulate the rest. This much is absolutely 
essential to the future well being of the 
state and the people. And it can be had 
whenever the majority will vote for it. 
Nations really strong, contented and 
happy exist in millions of cottages, not 
in a few ''palaces." "Labor is the true 
source of all real wealth aud riches." 

As has been stated Smith's "Wealth 
of Nations" appeared in 1776. Twenty- 
two years later one T. B. Malthus, a 
poor English clergyman, ambitious "to 
get on," and to shine in the eyes of "the 
upper classes" brought out his essay. 
This he called, "An Essay on the Prin- 
ciple of Population as It Affects the Fu- 
ture Improvement of Society, with Re- 
marks on the Writings of Mr. Godwin, 
Mr. Condorcet and Other Writers." 
This was the origin of what has since 
been called "Malthusianism." In this 
book he expounded his theory that 
"Population tends to outrun the means 
of subsistence." That is, Providence is 
sending into this world more mouths 
than he can feed in a state of general 
peace and happiness and, therefore, war, 
pestilence and famine are the God ap- 
pointed means of reducing the surplus 
population — a way the Creator has of 
getting rid of his own mistakes. Straight- 
way the Reverend Mr. Malthus found 
himself famous. Cambridge made him 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 25 

a Doctor of Divinity, and a snug place 
was found for him to the end of his 
days. The rich had need of him and 
his vile accusations against the Creator. 
But Malthus was now famous. He was 
dined and wined by "the nobility and 
gentry." The Malthusian theory was 
everywhere adoped by rank, birth and 
"society," and the great and apparent 
wickedness of the Creator in continuing 
to bring into the world millions of in- 
nocent children for whom no place had 
been kept at Nature's well-spread table 
and whose only inheritance was a life of 
misery and a death of agony was thought 
to be scientifically established. Malthus 
had been a poor clergyman with a large 
family — some eight or nine children — 
and from his own struggle for existence 
seems to have drawn the inference that 
as children, with him, outran the means 
of subsistence, the world and the 
whole human family were constructed — 
and rightfully so — upon the same model. 

Poor Malthus is not the only man who 
has undertaken to cut out trousers for 
the whole human family, using himself 
as model and pattern. The man who- 
does this usually has a good many "mis- 
fits" left on hand. Commonly he is ex- 
tremely lucky if the pair he has made 
for himself do not excite the derision of 
his neighbors. "Society," however ac- 
cepted the Malthusian trousers — not for 
themselves! Bless you no, but for the 
other fellows. The great and growing 
number of the oppressed, the evicted, 
the disappointed, the victims of cruel 
injustice and the sorrowful reminders of 
man's inhumanity to man — these were 
all to put on the Malthusian garb and 
thank the stars that their fate had been 
no worse, for had not God and the great 
Dr. Malthus settled the question for- 
ever against them? Should they grum- 
ble against the decrees of the Almighty 
or the exertions of his servants who were 
hard at work doing the will of God in 
thrusting them down into the lower 
deeps of despair? 



26 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



Although this horrible trash was com- 
pletel}^ and entirely opposed to the letter 
and spirit of the New Testament; was 
spoken pg?irist bj' the Master and de- 
nounced with unsparing force, still, by 
the church, man's inhumanity to man 
was justified and even deified; for was 
not God the author of "the decrees?" 
And was it not right that a man should 
be content m that station of life whereto 
it had pleased God to call him? 

These considerations held our fathers 
and bade them look with equanimity 
upon the want and wretchedness which 
their own unjust laws had created. And 
even in our day this damnable heresy 
has fastened itself upon modern civilzed 
life under the name of "the laws of sup- 
ply and demand," simply and solely be- 
cause these formulas are supposed to 
excuse man from the result of his own 
wrongdoing. And yet men know that 
the principal occupation of the Napo- 
leons of trade is to interfere with natural 
conditions and make demand or shut off 
supply as suits their notions of plunder. 



Men make these laws and in our day 
control them completely. Yet they tell 
the people that they themselves are not 
blamable but that the intangible and 
unreachable "laws of trade," which fix 
supply and control demand, aie alone 
answerable. These laws are natural — 
hence from Nature or the Supreme Cause. 
It is the old story. Malthus over again. 
God is to blame, not we. 

It used to be held that God brought 
pestilence to punish man for his sins. 
That did very well a hundred years ago. 
Now, people are beginning to know 
something of sanitary laws and to under- 
stand that filth and bad drainage are 
entirely sufficient causes. But Smith's 
political economy and Malthusianism 
in one shape or another, although as 
much out of place in the closing days of 
tbe nineteenth century as would be the 
Pope's bull against the comet, are still 
used to prevent home owning and inde- 
pendence on the part of the great plain 
people ot America. 



CHAPTER VII. 



FALSE HOPES. 



, Some one has said that the success of 
any plan having for its object the amel- 
ioration of the conditions surrounding 
humanity must depend upon two things. 
First, the plan must be in consonance 
with man's nature, and, second, it must 
also agree with the known laws of ex- 
ternal nature. This appears to me a 
most sagacious remark. In these days 
of pamphlets one meets with all sorts of 
theories and among them not a few 
vrhich fly in the face of all previous hu- 



man experience, the authors presum- 
ing, one might suppose, that as some- 
thing different is wanted that the thing 
to be desired must, perforce, be like 
nothing which so far has ever had ex- 
istence. 

But, surely, we ought to remember 
that the factors to be employed, man 
and nature, are. and must through all 
ages, remain the same. And, too, we 
cannot forget, that whatever has been 
found in the past to conflict with either 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 

of these factors has finally come to grief. 
Nature and human nature remain. The 
laws b • which both are governed have 
never changed, nor is it likely that, in 
this world at least, they ever will. If a 
long succession of events has in past 
ages shown that a certain course is in op- 
position to these laws it is not reason- 
able to suppose that a new trial will dis- 
■close different results. And yet we find 
men constantly hoping that a new effect 
may follow old causes, if only new names 
are given them. To succeed with men 
we must take them as they are, not as 
we might wish them to be. The world 

n.n which we live is governed by certain 

4aws called natural, which, so far as we 
are informed, have never varied or 
changed in the smallest particular. The 
factors, then, are the world as it exists 
and man as he is. The future will furnish 
no others. If, then, certain proposed 
changes in our manner of life and mode 
of government are seen by the unbiased 
mind to be in conflict with the nature of 
man, as shown by his course in the past, 
or the general laws of nature, as devel- 
oped by a continued succession of hu- 
man experiences, we must conclude that 
these changes are impracticable, not 
calculated to remedy existing difficul- 
ties and will surely come to naught. To 
conclude otherwise would be to refuse 
to learn from the results of human ex- 
perience. Men are constantly looking 
forward, revolving new plans and trying, 
in their minds, new theories. This is 
well. It means final progress. But the 
great fault of the present trend of 
thought — as it appears to me — is this, 
men are expecting too much to be done 
for them without giving sufiScient atten- 
tion to what they themselves may be re- 
quired to do. In short, they are con- 
cerning themselves more about rights 
and privileges and pleasures than about 
duties. Men have for the moment for- 
gotten that true happiness only comes 
as the result of duty done. 



27 



straight is the line of dut3', 
Curved is the line of beautj-; 

Walk by the one 
And thou Shalt ever see 
The other follow thee. 



"Life is real, life is earnest," said the 
poet and he spoke the truth. Life is 
a struggle. It must be so. When it i 
ceases to be a struggle improvement is 
at an end. In the South Sea islands 
food is all that man needs \o live and 
the sea and the trees furnish that for the 
taking. The kind of men these sur- 
roundings produce do not need to be 
imitated. White men with centuries of 
ancestral energy behind them subjected 
to these conditions rapidly degenerate. 

Now-a-days we hav^e people, earnest 
people, good people, who, flying from 
the too hard conditions of the present 
would go to the other extreme and pro- 
vide, m the government of the future, 
South Sea conditions for men here in 
the Uuited States. "The co-operative 
commonwealth" is, just now, the most 
popular ''fad." In this all the means 
of production, including land and ma- 
chinery, are supposed to belong to the 
"commonwealth," that is, to everybody; 
all citizens to assist in a very moderate 
way — a few hours each day — in the con- 
duct of "the business," the proceeds to 
be equally divided among all. This 
theory is an exceedingly old one — Plato 
advanced it more than two thousand 
years ago and it was probably old in his 
day — it has regularly come to the fore 
in times of revolution and great mental 
unrest, such as the present, but has 
never yet had trial upon a large scale. 
Several times in the history of the world 
it has been upon the point of trial but 
it has invariably failed because of the 
quarrels and excesses of the would be 
co-operators. It has been the story of 
the Tower of Babel over and over again. 
Many people who are disposed to laugh 
at Bible "stories" would do well to look 
deeper. Often the stories are simple 
allegories conveying the deepest 
philosophic truths. This is the 



28 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



case with the story of the Tower 
of Babel. First, we are informed 
that the people were "of one language 
and one speech." That is, they were of 
one mind; they agreed in their plans. 
Nothing bad, surely, about that. Next, 
there was nothing impious in their plans. 
This has been misrepresented. The mo- 
tive is given — they didn't want to be 
* 'scattered abroad." That's all right, 
too; who does? 

And they said go to, let us build us a city and 
a tower, whose top may reach into heaven; and 
let us make us a name, lest we be scattered 
abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Gen. 

XI., 4. 

Next the Ivord is written down as say- 
ing that if they continue to agree per- 
fectly — that is to talk the same way — 
they will accomplish anything that they 
may set their minds on. Why, of course. 

And the lyord said: Behold the people is one 
and they have all one language; and this they 
begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained 
from them which they have imagined to do."— 
Gen, XI., 6. 

Next, the Lord — that is, sovereign 
power, or Nature — is represented as pre- 
venting continued agreement. 

Go to, let us go down and there confound their 
language that they may not understand one 
another's speech. 

So the Lord scattered them abroad from 
thence upon the face of all the earth; and they 
left off to build the city.— Gen. xi., 7-8. 

Here the fact is plainly stated that 
the Ruling Force makes it impossible 
for men in great numbers to continue to 
agree upon one line of policy, where all 
are concerned in direct management. 
What would an army be worth with 
only two commanders? How much 
where all are supposed to command? 
Look at the masses of men in our own 
country today. Can they agree? Look 
at history. Look anywhere; ^does not 
this Bible story correctly interpret hu- 
man nature? 

And so, man's nature remaining the 
same, the same story has been repeated 
from age to age. In all cases among 
the would-be co-operators have been 



found most able and honest men, mem 
of great purity and uprightness, still 
large numbers, as must always be the 
case, were ignorant, turbulent and re- 
vengeful and these the more studious- 
were entirely unable to control from the 
absence of that central power and com- 
manding authority which their system 
forbade. 

A few years ago Edward Bellamy pub- 
lished a very readable romance which 
he called "Looking Backward." This 
was widely read and produced a very 
marked effect upon the public mind. 
In this book, which evidently drew its 
inspiration from Plato's "Republic" and 
More's "Utopia," Mr. Bellamy supplies 
the defect which we have noted, by the 
institution of a military form of enlist- 
ment and government. Each citizen is 
to serve in the "industrial army" from 
the age of 21 until 45, then he — or she — 
is to retire from work but is to receive 
his "credit card" entitling him to ob- 
tain from the national magazine what- 
ever he desires up to a certain set valua- 
tion. Every body is to have a good 
time and work at whatever he is besti 
fitted to do, those who labor at extra 
hard or hazardous Vv^ork, as mining, for 
instance, to work a less number of hours 
per day, thus compensating them for 
the nature of their occupation. Mr. Bel- 
lamy has since named his dream "na- 
tionalism," and has a large number of 
followers throughout the country, in- 
deed, most generous people are quite 
ready to sympathize with his views, to 
a greater or less extent. It is, however,^ 
now beginning to be perceived by many^ 
who at first counted themselves as "na- 
tionalists," that this system contains 
many serious defects. Readers will re-- 
member that Mr. Bellamy, very wisely, 
makes no mention of "the land ques- 
tion," has nothing to sav of the country, 
or of farms or farmers. All his accounts 
of life a hundred years hence relate to 
the manners and customs in vogue in 
cities. He certainly was quite shrewd. 



HOMES FOR THE HOMEI^ESS. 



29 



in the making of his story to say noth- 
ing of the farm for when city streets are 
entirely covered with awnings or "om- 
nibus umbrellas" on rainy days, the city 
everywhere brilliantly lighted by elec- 
tricity and "credit cards" free to every 
body entitling all to seats at hotel ta- 
bles and the opera, etc., etc., it will 
surely need the whole "industrial army" 
to keep the farmers, and especially the 
farmer's boys, from rushing in aud tak- 
ing complete possession of the whole 
"show." Then, too, it is readily per- 
ceived — now that the first flush of en- 
joyment over the presentation of a new 
dream is over — that immense difficulties 
lie in the way of apportioning employ- 
ment to the varying capacities of the 
different individuals. Under the new 
regime there would be no Abraham Lin- 
colns. Such a long-limbed, slab-sided 
giant as he was would never be allowed 
to try to reach the intellectual or men- 
tal heights. And even if allowed to try, 
the years of awkward trying and un- 
counted failures, which the real Abe. 
underwent, would never be allowed in 
"the community." Two or three ridic- 
ulous failures and the poor fellow would 
be sent to dig coal or ditches. Too 
much muscle would be going to waste, 
it would be thought. Now the misery 
of it all i?, no one can tell who the real 
Abraham Lincolns are until they have 
had an opportunity to make themselves; 
or, more accurately, until the divinity in 
each has worked up the material at its 
command. And this can only be the 
case in complete individual freedom. 
Liberty is thus seen to be a more valua- 
ble possession, when the future advance 
of humanity is considered, than all be- 
side. Dean Swift, I think it was, who 
compared life to a trestle board on 
which all the round holes were filled 
with square pegs and ail the square holes 
with round ones. And this is substan- 
tially the view of a large majority of 
people. You very rarely find a man 
who thinks himself engaged in the bus- 
iness for which he fancies himself fitted. 
And when in a moment of confidence 



he confides to you his thoughts regard- 
ing his own qualifications for some 
other occupation or profession you are 
often dumb from very astonishment, 
"O wad some power the giftie gie US' 
to see oursel as ithers see us." But it 
never does. We are all — in our younger 
days — Abraham Lincolns, or George 
Washingtons, or Thomas A. Edisons. 
or some other equally illustrious individ- 
ual. And it is God's mercy to the race 
that we are so. This means improve- 
ment; this means an advance for the 
race. True it is that most fail to reach 
the heights. ^But it is something to 
have tried. ■ Whoever has tried to rise 
in an honest way is forever the better 
for it. This is what life means^ 
This is what it is for. That men 
may advance. And men advance, and 
only advance, by surmounting opposi- 
tion. I think there never lived a men- 
tally well developed and helpful man 
who had passed his youth and early 
manhood in luxury with every want sup- 
plied. Men are not made better, or 
stronger, by giving them everything, 
but rather by inducing them to struggle 
to obtain. The effort must not be made 
impossible of success. This in many 
instances is the case today. A fair field, 
and no favoritism is the demand, and 
this can only be the case in freedom. 
Now, we have economic and commer- 
cial tyranny. Remove this; liberate 
men; give them the fair field that all res- 
olute natures demand and all generous 
ones would concede and" man will then 
be in position to advance. And this is 
the goal; the evolution of better and 
stronger men; not the mere getting of 
bread and butter for a world full of 
weaklings. 

Mr. Bellamy's military form of govern-- 
ment is another great objection. Men 
deteriorate in camps, in all great com- 
panies. The modern city is a case in 
point. It is the hint of nature which- 
must be obeyed, otherwise her dire and 
certain punishments are in store for the 
disobedient. West Pointers and other 
martinets will tell you that men im- 
prove under their discipline. But the 



30 



HOMES FOR THK HOMELESS. 



men themselves — and the surgeo.i — 
know better. Old soldiers will often 
tell you of the "good times" they expe- 
rienced in the army and yet, doubtless, 
they can also remember the transport 
of joy with which they hailed the ad- 
vent of peace! No good man desires to 



Looking Backward was, it seems to 
me, rightly named, but men should look 
forward. To hold men together in mili- 
tary organization, as a permanent prop- 
osition, with the idea of giving each one 
"a good time" is surely a low idea of the 
vast possibilities of humanity. If a 



remain in an army. The necessity of good time is the aim each citizen will be 

enlistment may be great in his mind but sure that he i^ not having quite so good 

he hopes the necessity may soon pass a time as his neighbor and inside of 

away. Discipline, and control, and con- thirty days after the launching of "the 

staut supervision, are hateful to the res- co-operative commonwealth" if "the 



olute and resourceful mind. Men to 
whom they are not, have small place in 
this world; mere wastrels they can not 
advance. 

Mr. Bellamy's attempt is. the old one 
of the abolition of private property, 
veiled under euphonious names and con- 
cealed in a story. They have all things 
in common. "Credit cards" do away 



army" can \ ote and the initiative and 
referendum are in use trouble will be- 
gin. That co-operation of limited 
numbers which leaves the personal life 
of the individual out of the account, 
will succeed most of us have occular ev- 
idence. But that is another and an en- 
tirely different matter. So long as they 
agree to be led by some master mind 



with money; all have the same amount among them all is well. When all try 
and nobody, individually, owns any- to rule the ihing comes to an end. 
thing. This feature is of the most ad- Men, to be men, must decide for them- 
vanced socialistic type; one of the selves, must act for themselves. The 
prophets of socialism declaring as one /true man will be his own prophet, priest 
of the foundation stones of his system Vand king. He is the son of the Most 
that ''property is robbery." In a good High and must work out his own salva- 
many instances, property, in these de- tion; no "board of control" can doit 
generate days is the result of robbery for him or relieve him of his own sense 
but because this results from abuse we of responsibility. And this weight of 
need not suppose that proper use would personal responsibility is a mighty fac- 



necessarily end in the same way. It is 

not necessary to burn down the house 

because the inhabitant is engaged in an 
/illegitimate business. The institution 

Lof private property has its origin deep Whatever service is of a public nature 
f within the springs of the human mind, must be conducted by the public, and 

It forms a large, and often a controlling, for the public, as is the case with the 



tor in the making of men. 

The true rule — as it seems to me — is 
this: Public things To the; pubi^ic; 

PRIVATE AFFAIRS TO THE INDIVIDUAI.. 



share of the motives which influence it; 
and, as a matter of fact, these motives 
have never been silenced save and ex- 
cept in the presence of greater and more 
powerful ones. Small companies of re- 
ligious enthusiasts have been able, tem- 
porarily, to hold all things in common but 
it was only while religious enthusiasm 
overmastered every other emotion; when 
this failed the compact was quickly 
broken. 



case 
post office and the public school. So 
far the socialists are right; but upon 
whatever chiefly concerns the individ- 
ual life of man, the home and the fam- 
ily let no man or government dare lay 
the finger of authority, save as punish- 
ment for crime. There must be a * 'safety 
valve." Man must be able to escape at 
some point from the command of au- 
thority. 



HOMES POR THE HOMELESS. 



31 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE DESIRE OF MAN'S HEART, 



Self preservatiou it is agreed is the 
first law of nature. This, then, is a 
<:ommand, enforced by each man upon 
himself. For no man escapes from himself 
and the laws of his own nature he will 
obey, because he cannot do otherwise. 
Wise people, good people, have in all 
ages warned men against selfishness. 
But no man ever did, or ever can, escape 
it. He may exercise choice regarding 
the way it shall influence him; of this, 
however, I am not sure, for each man is 
moved to do that he does by influences 
whose secret springs he knows not of. 
If the first law of man's nature com- 
m^ands him to care for himself — this 
above all things — that he will do, for it 
then becomes his chief desire. But how 
care for himself? Ah, there difference 
begins. This man may fancy that by 
-denying himself here he will attain a 
greater weight of glory there. In this 
he follows the law of selfishness, as do 
all men. Another relieves the sick and 
comforts the broken-hearted — to save 
the pain he would otherwise feel if he 
refused. Self, self, always self is first. 
It is the first law. 



Men who would advance must learn 
to think. Thought to be valuable must 
concentrate in the mind of the thinker 
and to achieve the best results he must 
be much alone. He must appeal to his 
own better self. If constantly sur- 
rounded by his fellows the influences 
coming from them prevent that concen- 
tration of mind necessary to the best 
thought. The student at college, de- 
spite his surroundings, is much alone; 
his study demands it. But the condi- 



tions and surroundings of the student 
are not possible to the great plain peo- 
ple, nor is it well that they should be. 
There is a better school — the school of 
nature — which may be opened to all, if 
men will but use it. Go talk to the shy 
and silent man who has spent his life as 
a hunter, far from the haunts of men. 
Though he cannot read a word of your 
written language and speaks with stumb- 
ling hesitation he has rich gems of 
thought, which, wheu you have compre- 
hended them, as you may not at first, 
will amaze and delight you. And yet, 
naturally his mind was of a low order, 
and what he has now was forced upon 
him by the very awe and magnificence 
of the processes of nature by which he 
has been surrounded. And in the un- 
tutored savage, unspoiled by "civiliza- 
tion" and uucorrupted by "knowledge" 
you shall find the same. 

Go, then, from these men of wisdom, 
who yet may be called ignorant, to those 
who are not ignorant, and who still have 
no wisdom. \'ou know where to find 
them. The camp, the court and the 
factory are full of them. Seeing they 
see not and hearing they hear not. Why? 
Their eyes are holden by the influences 
that come unbidden from their fellows; 
from sight of the sins and follies, which 
animal-like they are forced to imitate, 
and their ears are deafened by the babel 
of evil communications which corrupt 
good manners — and minds. Up to the 
years of discretion — if they ever come — 
we learn evil readily and good but 
rarely. Such is the fatal constitution of 
the human mind and so is destiny fixed. 
One boy, by himself, may do much of 
good; a dozen, and the devil is to pay. 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS, 
but children of a larger men or dogs, the animal 



32 

And men are 
growth. Men are ashamed in a crowd 
to utter their higher thoughts while 
folly has eager currency. All this has 
its effect upon the formation of charac- 
ter. No man in the company escapes it, 
while he remains in it. Let any man be 
one of a company and he must adopt 
the current thought of the company; 
otherwise he is jeered into silence. 
Most will conform, a few may not, but 
their children will. And because of the 
fact that in a mixed company high 
thought is not current and folly is, the 
multitude tread the broad road which 
leads downward. Downward to animal- 
ism. Go among the workmen of the 
cities in time of prosperity. Many get 
high wages; the flower of civilization is 
their's for the plucking. Libraries, lec- 
tures, art galleries, the treasures of the 
world are at hand. But they heed them 
not. A few, a very few, may, but they 
form only the exception that proves the 
rule. A few save money, taking the ad- 
vice of the wealth getter, that they, too, 
may become wealth holders and extor- 
tioners in their turn. They are no bet- 
ter than the other fools who follow only 
present pleasure. These wait for the 
future pleasure of extorting from their 
-fellows. But find the majority. You 
will not need to seek them far. After 
work and supper, the street, the saloon 
and the brothel, the gaming table, cards, 
\ alcohol and tobacco. Who needs to tell 
l^the story, do we not all know it? 

When will it be otherwise? When 
true and proper self-hood asserts itself, 
freeing itself from the animalism of the 
crowd. Never till then. One dog may 
be a very respectable companion for a 
wise man. Bring ten together and there 
will be a fight; a hundred and the sheep 
will need a most secure fold. One en- 
courages another in mischief; for true 
conduct no dog speaks. 

These things come from the constitu- 
tion of the animal mind which is in 
man. And in the crowd, whether of 



IS uppermost^ 
It has ever been so and the future will 
bring no change. It is true that picked 
companies of men having like thoughts 
and desires may find pleasure and profit 
in companionship. This is one of the 
great pleasures of life but even these 
companies must not be too large. But 
the general public can not be here in- 
cluded. Truest pleasures cannot be ex:- 
posed to the public gaze. Why waste 
energy and precious time in attempting 
to fight against the natural course of 
things. 'We come into life alone, alone 
we leave it and alone must we meet the 
crises of life. ^^^,, man shares, or can 
share, our individual responsibility. If 
men are to become men in the truest 
sense they must depend upon them- 
selves. All other help is a hindrance 
which destroys character. I call that 
education only which draws out the nat- 
ural force of man. The derivation of the 
word shows that. Educo, the root, to- 
draw out. 

We read that the tower and city of 
Babel were expected to scale the 
heights of heaven, that is, being inter- 
preted, to oppose the laws of Nature. 
No doubt the men of that day were hon-^ 
est enough, as many babelites have been 
since, and the more honest the greater 
fools they were. Which nobody can 
deny. 

There is a word dearer then evert 
mother, home or heaven. It is Lib- 
erty! The word denotes a condition, 
,This condition is the desire of the heart 
of man, for in it true self-hood is possi- 
ble. How then may the average man 
obtain it? 



Happy is the man, whose wish and care, 

A few paternal acres bound, 
Content to breathe his native air 

In his own ground. 

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with^ 

bread. 
Whose flocks supply him with attire, 

Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 
In winter fire. 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



33 



Blest, who cau unconcernedly find 

Hours, days and years, slide soft away. 
In health of body, peace of mind, 

Quiet by day. 

Sound sleep by night; study and ease, 

Together mix; sweet recreation; 
And innocence, which most does please 

With meditation. 

Thus let me live, iinseen, unknown, 

Thus unlamented let me die, 
Steal from the world, and not a stone 

Tell where I lie. 

—Pope. 

•'Sir, I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, 
get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no 
man's happiness, glad of other men's good, con- 
tent with my harm, and the greatest of my 
pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs 
suck." — Shakespeare. 

Twenty of the happiest years of the 
writer's life were spent upon farms. 
Ileared in towns, closely shut up in either 
.school or salesroom from youngest boy- 
'hood he had never spent more than a 
• week away from town up to the time 
(when he bought a tract of prairie land in 
I Illinois and began the life of a farmer. 
The freedom of life experienced by the 
\ change was wonderful. He was no 
longer at the beck and call of whoever 
came into his place of business, for it 
must be remembered that the retail 
dealer is one of the most abject servants 
to be found. A servant of servants he 
must be, upon occasion. To be his own 
master with none to molest was indeed 
a new and most agreeable experience, 
which even to this day has not been for- 
gotten. During these twenty years the 
writer made and lived upon five new 
farms, in three difterent states. Ihese 
personal matters are here introduced 
that it may be seen that he does not 
speak as a novice. 

Some one has said that the amount of 
freedom enjoyed by a man can be quite 
accurately gaged by the amount of time 
which he can take, without detriment 
from his occupation, to devote to his 
own personal pleasure or individual im- 
provement. This seems to me true and 
just. And who can compare in this with 



the farmer who is out of debt and secure 
in the possession of his home? What 
other man can bundle all his family into 
his own conveyance and start off, care 
free, upon a visit. And do this, too, 
during a large part of the year as often 
as he may like. Or, who will enjoy the 
like visit of a friend and his family as 
the farmer will who out of his abund- 
ance can set before them the produce of 
his own labor, gladly and joyfully? Who 
has so much time to spend in reading 
and study — if so minded — as he? And, 
too, if intellectually disposed the union 
of outdoor labor and indoor thought and 
study, neither being excessive, forms 
the only genuine and proper base for 
true thought and meditation, That 
these propositions are true, volumes of 
proof might readily be furnished but it 
will not be necessary, for no man of 
sound mind and experience in life will 
doubt them. The history of men and 
nations gives testimony in the same di- 
rection, and in this direction only. 
Here only are found that true patriot- 
ism, that resolute love of liberty, that 
elevation and reliability of character 
upon which a nation or a state may be 
founded. The civic mob has ever been 
as unreliable and treacherous as the 
wind that blows. Are we foolish enough 
to suppose that it will ever be anything 
else? The time came, in Rome, when 
demagogues ruled by pandering to the 
city mob. (Right here it should be re- 
membered that a demagogue — "one who 
attempts to control the multitude by 
deceitful arts." Webster — is one who 
deceives the public, never one who tells 
it the truth.) The mob, in the "marble" 
city of Rome, surrounded by beautiful 
architecture, sculpture, the sports of the 
arena and the intellectual treats of the 
forum, cried only for "bread and games;" 
something to eat and to amuse. And 
they were not ignorant people, for the 
time. Far from it. But, "that elder 
day, when to be a Roman was greater 
then a king," had departed. They had 



34 



HOMES FOR THK HOMELESS. 



become "a community." They theor- The meanest passion that affects the 

ized upon just such propositions as "all mind of man is fear. And fear is the 

for each and each for all" and the man sure sign and evidence of wrong. Men 

who thinks the theorizers of that day who fear the mob are conscious of hav- 

were anywise inferior to the labor unions ing wronged it and men who *'fear God" 

of today knows nothing of history. usually have good reason to do so. 

The proudest, the freest and the truest The first man of whom we have any 



Roman days were the early days 
when each family possessed its 
little farm. Once upon a time the 
Volscians threatened Rome. Cincin- 
natus, the general, being sent for, the 



account was placed in a garden with in- 
structions "to dress it and keep it." 
This I take to be an allegory setting 
forth the most profound truths of nature. 
No man goes beyond, or can go beyond, 



messenger found him ploughing in his this statement. 



field. Summoned to the supreme dic- 
tatorship, in a memorable campaign of 
sixteen days he had beaten the enemy 
and retired to his field and his plow. 
News of the battle of Lexington reach- 
ing Putnam he left his team yoked to 
the plow and hastened to the defence of 
free institutions. These were men. 
And they were the product of institut- 
ions, and these are, in course, freedom, 
solitude, thought, resolution, self reli- 
ance, courage, character. A strong peo- 
ple have courage and need no standing 



"And the I,ord God formed man of the dust of 
the ground and breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life; and man become a living soul." 
—Gen., 2-7. 

That is to say: Supreme power fash- 
ioned man from matter, and gave him 
an immaterial mind, or soul. 

"And the lyord God took the man and put him 
in the Garden of Kden to dress and keep it." — 
Gen., 2-15. 

In the childhood of the race, or with 
children today, truth must be idealized or 
personified to be received. The import 
of this statement is, simply: Man's nat- 



army. As the people become weaker ^^.^^^ legitimate and most useful life is 



the army grows stronger. And this is no 
mere coincidence; the one is a necessary 
compliment of the other. 

Were half the power that fills the world with 

terror, 
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and 

courts, 
Given to redeem the human mind from error 
There were no need of arsenals or forts. 

— L,ongfellow . 



found in conjunction and communion 
with nature. 

Man will best obtain liberty and the 
desire of his heart by becoming obedient 
unto law — the law of nature and of God. 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



35 



CHAPTER IX. 



HOPE THE MAINSPRING OF ACTION 



That all true life is a struggle from 
lower to higher conditions cannot be 
too often repeated. The old and the out- 
worn must continnally give way to the 
new, if humanity is to advance. En- 
cased in the hardened forms of super- 
stition, legality and antiquated custom, 
man weakly struggles to be free. Let 
him learn of nature and be wise. Geol- 
ogy shows us the skeletons of the past 
encased in the rocks formed in the early 
twilight of the ages. Shapeless mon- 
sters, living only to prey on each other, 
they gradually gave place to higher 
organizations. And still the work is in 
progress. Man, first a savage and then 
a barbarian, has obeyed the same mighty 
law and is slowly taking form and place 
as the child of God and heir of the 
priceless treasures of the Eternal Mind. 
But he is still at an immense distance 
from the goal. The way is long and 
difficult but it must be followed. There 
is but one true path. By knowledge 
man becomes stronger aud better fitted 
to encounter the difl&culties he must 
surmount. But the difficulties will re- 
main. They must remain. They are 
the text books in the school of life. 
Foolish boys would abolish them and 
with them the means of knowledge, for 
by these men are taught; and most men 
will learn only in this the school of per- 
sonal experience. Nature's methods are 
rough and hard, but she is at heart a 
kind and most devoted mother. If her 
childien can but lean upon her breast 
she will teach them the way of life. 
Cursed be the hand of that man who 
would prevent it. 



"You take luy house, when you do take the prop 
That does sustain my house; you take my life 
When you do take the means whereby I live." 
— Shakspeare. 

In the early history of these United | 
States land, and the means of living, 
were comparatively free. Men, then, 
were also free. 1 he one statement is a 
necessary complement of the other, for 
one cannot be true without the other. 
And even the inhabitant of towns who 
did not wish to "take up land" felt the 
freedom of his brother. For thus was 
he freed from that soul-killing compe- 
tition which now seems the lot of all 
who labor. In spite of the great influx 
of needy foreigners a state of compar- 
ative freedom was maintained up to the 
time, about a generation ago, when it 
began to be difficult for the poor man to 
obtain land. This was the dividing line; 
man's ability to apply his labor to free 
soil. And this previous freedom was the 
result, pure and simple, of the abund- 
ance of land, to be had almost for the 
asking. 

The Free Soil National Convention of 
1852 — really the first Republican Na- 
tional Convention — acknowledged these 
truths in its platform of that year, say- 
ing: 

"All men have a natural right to a 
portion of the soil, and as the use of the 
soil is indispeusible to life, the right of 
all men to the soil is as sacred as the 
right to life itself," 

Up to that time employment was at 
every man's door, there were no "unem- 
ployed," no "tramps," no public misery. 
And all this because men could apply 
labor to land without the payment of 



36 HOMES FOR THE HOMEIvESS. 

rent to men who had no moral right, no Thus the conditions were present 

just right, to thus live upon the labor of which nature demands, which she will 

others. Instead of paying rent the cul- have, or inflict her penalties. We have 

tivator of land received it in the con- seen that this is her way. It is clearly 

stantly increasing value of his farm* shown us in the history of the past. 

And wherever this applied only to the Among savages land is free — and men. 

land used for self-support this was, and Civilization, so-called, restricts man's 

is, and ever will be, just; unless the land natural right to the soil; nature rebels, 

is needed for public use. In that case turmoil and destruction result and man 

the right of the many exceeds that of is once more brought back to primitive 

one family as a matter of course. And conditions. 



this was the reason of general prosperity 
and no other. The power of the money 
changers in President Jackson's time 
was as great for evil as it is today and 
the damage inflicted by them upon prop- 
erty-holders as severe, and proportioned 
to the number of people in the country, 
as many were ruined by their machin- 
ations as is the case today. In some 



"First freedom and then glory, when this fails, 
Wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last, 
And history with all her volumes vast 
Hath but one page." 

Freedom to apply labor to land assures 
to all men not only a support, not only 
an answer to the daily recurring wants 
of the physical body, but also gives that 
hope, that boundless confidence in the 
future which has been the main-spring 



respects the panic of 1837 has never since ^^ ^^^^ American progress and character 



been equalled. But there was, at that 
time, always a way of escape to the man 
willing to labor. Uncle Sam was, then, 
"rich enough to give us all a farm" — as 
he is today, when affairs are properly 
adjusted, and in this adjustment no 
man's property need be taken without 
payment; but of this more will be said 
farther on. Then, whoever was so 



which has amazed and instructed the 
world. Men must be permitted to hope. 
When will our plutocrats learn that un- 
less the cottages of the country are filled 
with hopeful and happy families that 
their pretentious "palaces" rest upon 
most insecure ground? 

Every physical fact, every material 

fact, depends for its applicability and its 
minded could take his axe and gun and ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ 

carve out for himself a home m the ..^^ ^ ^^^ thinketh so is he." The 
wilderness. He could, if moderately condition of the minds of the people in 
skilled as a hunter, make a support from ^ country is the most important thing to 
the start, with a comfortable home and be considered in any land or time. If a 
a moderate fortune as a certainty in the ^^^^ ^^ thought passes over the minds 
future, Add to the axe and gun a horse ^^ ^^^ immediately its effects are seen 
and cow arfd he was able to support a ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^ -^ ^^^ character of 
family. In those days it was a shame ^^^.^ ^^^^^ j^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^_ 
for a man to be without employment ^^^^ If the minds of men, of the great 
and no man, no healthy man, need feel g^^^^^j ^^^j-^^ ^^^ strongly moved upon, 
discouraged. Opportunity was open to ^ condition is created which must be 
all, for he who did not wish to "farm it" reckoned with in any calculation regard- 
could readily find an opening in some .^g ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ 
one of the little towns-soon to be larger ^^^^ ^^^-^ shadows before and he who is 
-with which the country was filled. He ^jg^ may read the signs of the coming 
could always -go west and grow up with ^^^^ ^^ ^^.^ ^.j^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ 
the country." Then, "Go west young Qjan of experience or penetration of 
man," was the true material gospel, for mind it may be well to note for a moment 
it meant health, wealth and prosperity, the manner in which "the first law of 



nature" affects men 
questions which here arise may be ans- 
wered by saying that man lives to 
acquire; to gain something. Some small 
gain, in one direction or another, must 
be his. The scholar, though steeped in 
poverty, is satisfied with his gain in 
knowledge; the pietist with advance in 
his peculiar thought; the artist with in- 
crease of talent and the man of the 
world with enlarging coffers. But there 
must in all cases be an advauce. This is 
the law. Increase need not be great, 
but it must be continuous. Hope must 
have somewhat upon which to feed. 
We are often amazed by the conduct of 
men who though excessively wealthy 
still grasp for greater riches. We need 
not be. They only obey a law of nature 
which it is impossible to shun without 
penalty. For, if a man after having 
formed character as a wealth-getter sud- 
denly ceases to acquire and 'retires," 
he is miserable. Self-preservation is the 
first law and it affects men by making 
them desirous of acquiring something. 
What that something may be depends 
upon the man, upon the peculiar consti- 
tution of his mind. But he must acquire 
something. It may be either wealth, 
honor, skill, power, glory, or what not, 
but an advance must be made. If these 
considerations do not move a man we 
say that he is deranged or insane and 
we speak the truth, because he is of un- 
sound mind, that is, his mind is seen to 
be abnormal and unnatural. Now, this 
being the case, if from any cause it 
becomes impossible for men to satisfy 
the natural desires of the mind they are 
rendered insane just to the degree in 
which hope is shut off. If hope is abso- 
lutely and entirely destroyed the man is 
absolutely and entirely insane, as any 
standard authority in this matter will 
show us. Hope in the future, on the 
part of the great common people in tliis 
country, is being destroyed, as all men 
not blinded by their ill gotten gains 
know full well. What will our ignorant 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 37. 

generally. The millionaire masters do with a nation of 



madmen? And from appearances it 
would seem that they will eventually 
have an opportunity to test the matter. 

The truth is the "men of affairs" the 
"Napoleons of trade" and the like, who 
at this stage in our national life control 
our policies are for the most part densely 
ignorant men. Of history and philoso- 
phy they know nothing and care less. 
One of the class said to the writer, some 
years ago : ' 'Money has always controlled 
men and it always will." What a fool! 
Who does not know that hate, when 
sufficiently aroused, leaves money out of 
sight. Let two men become angry at 
one another and they will spend the 
last hardly earned dollar they have, or 
can borrow, in fighting a case at law. 
Did the money of the nobles save their 
lives even, in the French Revolution? 
And is not hate being aroused in this 
country? And the monopolists are i>ay- 
ing among themselves that this hate, 
which they by their evil deeds have cre- 
ated, is the result of the teachings of 
"agitators!" Do they suppose the peo- 
ple can be continually and forever de- 
ceived by their lying presses? The 
slave-drivers of the south were wiser. 
Their slaves could not read. Let them 
attack their real enemy— the common 
schools. Would they have men as 
ignorant as themselves? Is this their 
wish? And do not they, more than 
others, need to know the truth? 

Says Walter Ba^ehot, an English 
scholar of great authority: 

Any system which makes the mass of 
society hate the constitution of that so- 
ciety must be in unstable equilibrium. 
A small touch will overthrow it and 
scarcely any human power will re-es- 
tablish it." 

Talk about agitators and deceivers of 
the people! The real deceivers are the 
editors of the capitalistic press and the 
lying and thieving politicians, in whose 
pay they write, these are the "dema- 
gogues." Truth is what is arousing the 
people. Will they call Dr. Paley, the 



38 HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 

celebrated English divine of the last upon the subject of the recent massacre 
century, whose system of philosophy is of Armenian Christians, said: 
still taught in our schools, a demagogue 
because he set before the world the fol- 
lowing true picture: 



* 'If you should see a flock of pigeons 
in a field of corn; and if (instead of each 



"If the allegations are true, it will 
stand as if written in letters of iron on 
the rocks of the world, that a govern- 
ment which could countenance and 
cover the perpetration of these outrages 
. , . , J 1 -i. 1-, J ^ 1 • is a disgrace to Mohammed, whom the 

picking where and when It hked, taking Turks profess to follow, a disgrace to 
just as much as it wanted and no civilization at large, and a curse to man- 
more) you should see ninety-nine of y^^^^ »> 
them gathering all they got into a heap; 

reserving nothing for themselves but Mr. Gladstone, in company with mil^ 
the chaff and the refuse; keeping this n^ns of other people, has, no doubt, 
heap for one, and that the weakest, per- , , r i. , i t • r ^ 

haps worst, pigeon of the flock; sitting keenly felt the barbarity of these mur- 
round, and looking on, all the winter, ders. We all, however, are much in- 
whilst this one was devouring, throwing clined to note the sins of others, passing 
about, and wasting it; and if a pigeon over in silence our own transgressions, 
more hardy or hungry than the rest, t 4. iv/r r^^ a ,- ^ ^t, -r^ i- -u 

touched a grain of the hoard, all the ^^^ ^^- Gladstone, and the English, 
others flying upon it and tearing it to look at home for murderers. The Eng- 
pieces; if you should see this, you would lish holders of Egyptian bonds who 
see nothing more than what is every brought the guns of their great ships of 
day practiced and established among r .i ., • 

men. Among men, you see the ninety war-for they use their government as 
and nine toiling and scraping together our bond-holders do ours— to bear upon 
a heap of superfluities for one (and this Alexandria in the war upon the Egyp- 
one too oftentime, the feeblest and tj^n fellaheen, who under Arabi Pasha 
worst of the whole set, a child, a wo- , , , , . . , 
man, a madman, or a fool) getting noth- struck a blow for freedom, were respon- 
ing for themselves all the while, but a sible at that time for far greater outrage 
little of the coarsest of the provision and murder than have been the Turks 



which their own industry produces; 
looking quietly on, while they see the 
fruits of all their labor spent or spoiled; 
and if one of the number take or touch 
a particle of the hoard, the others join- 
ing against him, and hanging hiui for 
the theft." 



of late. And he quite forgets the slow 
murder of millions of his own country- 
men effected by denying them any por- 
tion of the land of their fathers; a right 
given them by the Creator and now 
kept back by fraud, resulting in poverty. 
Now, if you wish to note the same disgrace, crime and death. For when 



sort of thing among men read the fol- 
lowing from a recent English paper: 

"It is said that a person standing on 
the ruins of the old castle of Hawarden, 
near Gladstone's home, can see with the 
naked eye enough unused park land to 
furnish livelihood for perhaps a million 



opportunity is taken from men hope 
sinks and manhood is destroyed. Thus 
the men of one generation are not only 
slowly destroyed and slowly murdered, 
but coming generations, also, are in- 
jured beyond repair. These conditions 



people. Most of th^'s land is owned by are imposed upon humanity by men 

the duke of Westminister and only the li^e Mr. Gladstone, nor will the English 
rabbits that overrun it seem to get any , ^-^ i. j 

advantage out of it. Mr. Gladstone's government, constituted as it now is, 

own estate comprises several thousand ever take a step toward justice. Under 

acres of forest land untouched by any these circumstances I do not hesitate to 



ax except that of the G. O. M. himself. 
It has been at times a favorite hunting 
preserve for Herbert Gladstone, who oc- 
casionally slaughters rabbits there." 

The other day Mr. Gladstone being 



parody the language of "the grand old 
man" by saying, that the government 
that can countenance and cover the per- 
petration of these outrages is a disgrace 
called to speak in an English meeting to Jesus, whom the English profess to 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



39 



follow; a disgrace to civilization at large 
and a curse to man kind. 

But we have the same to answer for. 
All over the country, and especially in 
California, one may see the like; land 



ute law. Take away special legal privilege 
from all, give to each family its inalien- 
able natural right to a sufiScient portion 
of the soil for self-support and hope 
will be born anew in the hearts of the 



monopoly is common. Everywhere great plain people, who today look with 
there is land enough and to spare. If distrust and fear to the coming of the 
no one has too much, all will have morrow. 



enough. But as affairs now are with us 
the small land owner has a hard time of 
it. Indeed, it is now impossible for men 
to apply labor to land without becoming 
subject to the runious exactions of the 



"Land reform is the greatest of all 
anti-slavery measures. Abolish slavery 
tomorrow, and the land monopoly would 
pave the way for its restablishment. But 
abolish land monopoly, make every 
American citizen owner of a farm ade- 



land-lord, the lend-lord, the trust and the ^^ate to his necessity and there will be 
^, J J r .no room for the return of slavery." — 

thousand and one sources of monopoly. Q^rrett Smith, in 1856. 
These, one and all, are entrenched in stat- 



CHAPTER X. 



A HOLY THING. 



"In every country the nation is in the cottage, 
and if the light of your legislation does not 
shine in there your statesmanship is a failure 
and your system is a mistake. "—Cannon Farrar. 

"To deprive others of their right to the use of 
the earth is to commit a crime only inferior in 
wickedness to the crime of taking away their 
lives or personal liberties."— Herbert Spencer. 

Some one has recently made a calcu- 
lation which shows that if each family 
possessed a sufficient portion of the 
earth's surface for self support, and no 
more, that the present population of the 
United States could be amply provided 
for east of the Alleghany ridge. This 
would no doubt be ample, for if culti- 
vated to the extreme limit the land of 
this nation is caoable of supporting the 
combined millions of the world. Land 
has been monopolized by the few. The 
natural right of man has been denied 
and his birthright stolen. And it has 
come about in this country by an ignor- 



ant and foolish attachment on the part 
of the people to "precedent" and the 
outworn legal forms of the past. 

"No msn made the laud; it is the original in- 
heritance of the original species."— John Stuart 
Mill. 

"The original deeds were written with the 
sword rather than with the pen." — Herbert 
Spencer. 

In Chapter V it has been shown that 
our land titles proceed direct from the 
feudalistic assumptions of "the middle 
ages." Educated men have always 
known that these forms were false, that 
for them there was no ground in truth. 

"There is no foundation in nature, or in nat- 
ural law, why a set of words upon parchment 
should convej' the dominion of land." — Sir 
William Blackstone. 

But the great mass of the people have 
hugged to their bosoms this fatal viper 
which the constructors of our consti- 



40 HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 

tution allowed to live. And they knew another will not work the soil, for these 
it to be a viper, at least the wiser ones are the people chiefly benefited by this 
among them did. This was their greatest arrangement, And these proposed ben- 
mistake. They allowed slavery to live, efits are to come from the denial of man's 
and with it many things that destroyed greatest right, a right which comes from 
the natural right of man; for to concede the Creator and not from any "mere 
to "all men" their rights destroyed this fiction" of would-be robbers. That "the 
relic of barbarism. They thus accepted single tax," as at present advocated, 
the results of feudalism by perpetuating denies this natural right is sufficient con- 
its laws and in this manner laid the demnation, for if one man has no right 
foundation for the loss by their descend- to exact rent from his brother neither 
ants of the self same rights for which have two, nor a hundred, nor a million, 
they declared their independence. Bat that the matter may be plain to all 
Thomas Jefferson the wisest man among it should be seen by any one that by 
them, who confessed that he "dreamt means of the single tax it would always 
of freedom in a slave's embrace," recog- be possible for wealth to dispossess pov- 
nized the matter of our contention clear- erty in the possession of land. The 
ly enough and in a letter to a friend wealthy man desiring from any cause 
written during the revolution writes the land of his poorer neighbor would 
thus: always be able to offer more rent to "the 

"When the war is over and our free- community" for its use than the other, 

dom won, the people must make a new xhe community interested only in the 
declaration; thev must declare the rights . r . -, 4. 4. u v.4. • a c 

of man, the individual, sacred abovl all ^^ount of tribute to be obtained from 

craft in priesthood or government; they land would decree t at "the full rental 

must at one blow put an end to the trick- value" must be paid. This establishes 

ing of English law which, garnered up <«rack rent" and places the inalienable 

in the channels ot ages, binds the heart - ,. c ^ ^-l. r ^^l. 

and will with lies. They must perpetu- "^^^ of man at the mercy of wealth, 

ate republican truth by making the We have already had enough of this, let 

homestead of every man a holy thing us try something else. Let us "perpet- 

which no law can touch, no juggler can ^j^te republican truth, by making the 

wrest from his wife and children. Until . ^ j ^ u 1 i-u- 

this is done the revolution will have ^^^^^^^^^^ °^ ^^^^y "^^^ ^ ^^^^ ^^^^S 

been fought in vain." which no law — or tax — can touch, no 

So far, then, the revolution of the past juggler can wrest from his wife and child- 
has been in vain. For this natural right, ren." Let the "single taxers" exempt 
however, humanity must continue to a moderate homestead from the oper- 
struggle 'till freedom is fully won. ation of their scheme and it may then 

"Fo'r always in thine eyes, o Uberty, possibly become a reform. Until then 

Shines that high light whereby the world it is only another plan for the robbery of 

is saved, labor — by "the community." "He who 

And, though thou slay us we will trust ^^^j^ ^^ ^^ ^j^^^ ^^^^ consent to have 
in thee." , .. r^ . t.- 

-John Hay, Pres. Uncoln's Private Secretary. "«> slave." Secure to every man his 

,, TT r^ ' - i.u natural right to apply labor to land 

Mr. Henry George recognizing the "'*'■ ^ fp ^ 

J A f ^ ^ , ^^« +v,^ o«;i «^« without the payment of tribute to any, 

dependence of man upon the soil pro- . ,, -, 1, 1, / 

, ^ 11 ..u • i. 1 • 1,4- man or "community," and all will be 

poses to secure to all their natural rights ^^" " ^ -'■> , , , 

f ^- ^^ r J 4-u ^ «^ well. If men do not wish to apply labor 

by preventing all from using the ground , , , 

, ,,,- ^11 ,1 , )>^r<.i, ^v«^ to land they cannot then tax those who 
unless "the full rental value" of the same •" ^ , ,, , . 

is paid to the community for its use. ^^' I^and used for public or business 

Evidently he is thinking only of the Purposes, involving the public, may 

people who do not cultivate, who do not properly enough be taxed by the public, 

wish to; of those who from one cause or Two "rights" here plainly appear: the 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 



4X 



individual right of man and the public 
right of society. Let us freely admit 
them both, adopt as our maxim: public 

THINGS TO THEJ PUBI^IC; PRIVATE AF- 
FAIRS TO THK iNDiviDUAi,, and press 
forward to their unqualified endorse- 
ment in statute law. 

"I would not only see homes free from attach- 
ment for debt, but free from taxation also.— Rob- 
ert G. Ingersoll, 

Let US render unto Caesar the things 
that be Caesar's, but unto the divinity 
that sits enshrined within the soul of 
man let us render its due meed and ever- 
lasting right. God's only temple is the 
human mind. It must pay no tribute. 

The following constitutional amend- 
ment is offered as a means of securing 
both these rights. Any state can adopt 
it, and enforce its provisions. Properly 
it is a matter for the state and not the 
national government to consider. 

Section i. — Real estate, or land and all usual 
improvements, to the value of a sum not to ex- 
1 ceed two thousand five hundred dollars ($2500) 
ji held, used and occupied in good faith as a home- 
ij- stead by any usual and private family the head 
1 1 of which family shall be a citizen of the United 
\i States and the State of Washington, is hereby 
forever exempted from all taxation of every 
kind and character in this State. Provided, that 
all lands and natural opportunities used or 
needed for public use or business, as certain 
limited and restricted areas in towns and cities, 
all mines, torests, waterfalls, or other natural 
opportunities not available for cultivation or as 
dwelling places be and the same are hereby ex- 
pressly exempted from the provisions of this 
article. 

Section 2.— The right of every family des- 
cribed in Section One of this article to the ex- 
clusive possession of a homestead, held, used 
and occupied as described in said Section One 
and valued at a sum not exceeding two thousand 
five hundred dollars ($2500) shall not be abridged 
or denied by reason of any contract, agreement, 
mortgage or other instrument or promise what- 
soever verbal or written made or executed by 
the possessors of said homestead after this 
article shall have been adopted in proper form 
by the people of this State. ' 

Section 3.— The legislature shall have power 
to enact all laws necessary to carry into effect 
the due intent and meaning of the provisions 
of this article. 

The passage of this amendment would 
restore to the people of a state the birth- 



right of which man has been defrauded. 
This is the cause of that frightful poverty 
which makes a torture-house of the 
world. This is that impious shame 
which a decaying Christianity makes no 
effort to remove. E.emove this damning 
blot and man will be free. And scholars 
have always known of its existence. 

"Whilst another man has no land my title to 
mine, your title to yours, is at once vitiated." — 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

In the first century of the Christian 
era the philosopher Seneca was the in- 
structor of the youthful Nero. After- 
ward this devil's whelp had the good 
man murdered. But Seneca knew the 
cause of the misery of man, for he wrote 
as follows: 

"While nature lay in common and all the ben- 
efits promiscuously enjoyed what could be hap- 
pier than the state of mankind, when people 
lived without avarice or envy. What could be 
richer than when there was not a poor man to 
be found m the world. So soon as this impar- 
tial bounty of Providence came to be restrained 
by covetousness, so soon as individuals appro- 
priated that to themselves which was intended 
for all, then did poverty creep into the world." 

The enactment into law of the provis- 
ions of this amendment will restore to 
man this blessing of God. And it will 
do it gradually and without injustice to 
any. And, further, it will prevent that 
fatal clash of the classes otherwise inev- 
itable. It will prevent it because it will 
restore that of which men are now de- 
frauded. It is a simple act of justice. 

"But since we live in an epoch of change, and, 
too, probably, of revolution, and thoughts, 
which are not to be put aside are in the minds 
of all 'men capable of thought, I am obliged to 
affirm the one principle which can, and in the 
end will, close all epochs of revolution — that 
each man shall possess the ground he can use, 
and no more."— -John Ruskin. 

The Hebrew scriptures are full of the 
denunciations of God against those who 
take the land of the poor. How is it 
that men who affect to be bound by this 
law utterly repudiate it? Moses pre- 
vented the loss of the homestead and 
secured under the severest penalties suf- 
ficient land for self-support to every He- 
brew family. What was wrong then is 



42 



HOMES FOR THK HOMELESS. 



wrong now. Whatever brought down 
the judgment of God then, will do it to- 
day. God does not always pay every 
Saturday night. But he pays. He never 
forgets. From this there is no escape. 
In nature and under natural law we see 
that no sin is ever forgiven. If I place 
my hand in the fire it will be burned 
without regard to my faith. Garfield 



forth and living men are entitled to hold 
land or to have "a claim" upon it while 
they live. This is the testimony of all 
disinterested thinkers. Those who hold 
to the contrary, whether blindly or not, 
do so because they would conserve some 
great interest or special privilege of the 
few. 
The title to farm homes under the pro- 



died though the whole world was in. posed amendment v^^ould be substan- 



prayer for him. No natural law was' 
ever broken without consequent suffer- 
ing. "The fool hath said in his heart 
there is no God." That is, no penalty) 
for the breaking of God's law, i. e. Na- 
ture's law. But there is, and it will be 
visited upon the head of the guilty. 
/^The truth is "all men" have a right to 
/ use land. Land belongs, absolutely, to 
V no man. While in possession of the 
worker it is his — to use aud occupy. He 
holds from nature, from God; by being 
a man, and because of his needs. This 
is his title and, it comes from no man or 
community. He has a right to land just 
as he has a right to air. If he does not 
use air he has no claim upon it. And 
his right to either air or land only comes 
by its exercise. The right in either case 
is latent. It only becomes active and 
has an actual existence by use. All this 
has been stated time and again. Black- 
stone's argument showing occupation 
and use to be the sole natural — the only 
honest— title has never been answered. 
It never can be. Carlyle, one of the 
deepest thinkers of modern times, re- 
iterates the same. 

Men talk of selling land! Who could or can 
sell it to us? The notion of selling for certain 
bits of metal the land of the World Creator is a 
ridiculous impossibility. Properly speaking, 
the land belongs to these two— to the Almighty 
God and to His children of men that have 
worked well on it, or that shall ever work well 
on it.— Thomas Carlyle. 

Jefferson held to the same: 

The earth belongs in usufruct to the living; 
the dead have no right or power over it. — 
Thomas Jefferson. 

That is, the fruits of the use of land 
belong to living men who bring them 



tially that now given to "claim holders" 
[by the U. S. homestead law, with this 
exception that instead of lasting for 
only five years it would endure for life. 
' As in the homestead law, the family is 
made the possessor and so long as any 
portion of the family remained title 
would remain. The claim, or right of 
possession, could be sold by giving pos- 
session just as men now sell claims. 
Every man who has ''taken up" U. S. 
land knows that there is no better title 
in the world. Every facility should be 
given for transactions of this character 
and as soon as a man had, in this way, 
"sold" his homestead his title to an- 
other-if he could get it-should be as good 
as ever. It may be claimed that in this 
way some man might make a business 
of taking up and improving homesteads 
for sale and that he would be able, pos- 
sibly, to make gain. Very good; if so it 
is well, for he would in this way add to 
the wealth of the world and deserves 
all he will ever get by this hard labor. 

The principal theoretical opposers of 
this amendment will be found among 
the "single taxers." Has it escaped 
their attention that they all take the 
mental attitude of tax receivers and not 
of tax payers? No w^orking farmer who 
himself ploughs his own field and digs 
his own garden — and he is the only man 
who has natural title to the land — de- 
sires to pay rent* to our theorizing, city 
dwelling, would-be taxer. And why 
should he? He owes him nothing and 
the taxer has no claim upon him except 
the desire, common to many, to reap 
where he has not sown and to take up 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 43 

where he has not laid down. Upon land as these are the fields of India and 

used for public purposes the Dublic has Egypt tilled. These are the slaves of 

a claim, but the homestead, the means taxation; taxation, too, imposed upon 

of life to the families of the poor, is a the laborer by those who in this way 

holy thing which must be preserved in- seek to rob him of that which he, and 

violate from would-be taxers as well as be alone, has created. 

would-be mortgagees. Another consid- "Single taxers" talk of land! It is 

eration ought to have weight with these not land they want but the fruits of 

people: If a family only hold enough labor; of the labor of other men. 

laud for self-support, and no more, then It is agreed that only he who occu- 



whatever is paid in taxation must be 
subtracted from that which is needed for 
self-support. 

This method is in use in Egypt 
and India. It makes fellahin and ryots, 
the poorest and most degraded laborers 



pies and uses land has title from Nature 
— from the Owner. One can himself oc- 
cupy and properly use, by means of his 
own labor, but a very small portion of 
the earth's surface. To him who 
would tax the man thus engaged let me 



in the world. God pity the man who quote the words of Charles Reade: "Put 
would aid in creating such. But by such yourself in his place." 



CHAPTER XI. 



A "RESUME"— LOOKING FORWARD. 



"I honor the man or woman who is willing to 

sink 
Half their present repute for the freedom to 

think. 
And when they have thought, be their cause 

strong or weak, 
Will risk other half for the freedom to speak — 
Caring- naught for what vengeance the mob has 

in store, 
Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or 

lower." —Lowell. 

In a state of nature all men have a 
right to a suflBcient portion of the earth's 
surface for self-support. This is brought 
clearly to mind in thinking of Robinson 
Crusoe and the life he led upon the 
lonely island in the midst of the sea. 
His right to land there was, at first, 
no one to ^dispute. If another ship- 
wrecked sailor had been cast upon the 
island the second comer's right would 
have been as good as that of Crusoe. 



Of course he would have no right to 
anything that Robinson had made, nor 
would he have any right to interfere 
with the cabin, the field or the crops of 
the first comer. So long as the first man 
upon the island took no more of what 
kind nature had provided for his use 
than was needed to supply his natural 
wants the second could have no right to 
interfere with him or his doings. The 
third man, if he came, would have the 
same, that is, equal, right with the 
others and this would continue with 
others as they came until the capacity 
of the island to support life was ex- 
hausted. The rights which these people 
would thus have to the soil are the 
natural ''rights which nature — or the 
Creator — has given to all men. These 
are the rights enjoyed by all men, which 



44 



in all the history of the world have been 
enjoyed by all, up to the time when 
some conqueror or murderer has subdued 
and enslaved men and by means of mil- 
itary power taken to himself the right to 
sell or otherwise dispose of their right to 
a support from the soil. He "granted" 
to some of his followers certain districts 
and sold to others other portions. The 
land of the country thus conquered or 
taken by force is said to belong to the 
conqueror "by the grace of God." All 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 

I have said that men are reduced to 
slavery by this withdrawal of their right 
to the soil. Let us see, Robinson 
Crusoe one day discovered a poor savage 
upon "his island." he having escaped 
I believe, from his cannibal masters who 
had made "a call" at the island. Crusoe 
named this man Friday,, because he dis- 
covered him upon that day. He took 
him as a slave. But he could have 
secured all his services — and in fact a 
slave — by saying to him: "Friday you 



later buyers and sellers of land trace are as free to come and go and do as you 
their paper titles back to him. In please as I am, but this island with all 
Chapter V, under the title, "Evolution its belongings is mine, you must not 
of a Great Crime," is shown the manner taste nor touch without making a bar- 
in which this has been done. Now, but gain with me." 

for this theft, but for this great crime, Immediately, Friday's necessities 

all men'would this day enjoy the right would have compelled him to come to 

to apply their labor to unoccupied land an understanding with "the owner of 

as in the case of Robinson Crusoe and the island." He would not wish to 

his supposed companions. In the event jump into the sea, and to stand, even, 

of the increase of population upon upon Robinson's land would give him 

Crusoe's island and the necessity arising power over him. To supply himself 

of the construction of a wharf and tke with food he must make terms and take 

building of a town which would be of whatever Robinson is willing to allow, 

use to all, then public ownership would And this is the condition in which poor 

begin. The easiest and best way to people find themselves today. If they 

assert this ownership and secure its ad- buy a piece of land they are so imposed 

vantages is by means of taxation for the upon by taxation, by the arts of the 

benefit of all. The power to tax is an money lords, and the various schemes of 

assertion of ownership or sovereignty; the wealthy to indirectly tax them that 

this lies at the base of all taxation, they are little better off. Often the 

But the right to tax the small home- man who holds a mortgage on a farm is 

stead is lacking, for the reason that the only person who receives any profit 

ownership of the property resides only from the arduous labors of the farmer 

in the Creator and, temporarily, in the and his overworked family, 

occupier and user and not in the people ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ p^^ple of this country are 



who desire to tax the workers. In all 
so-called civilized governments the prop- 
erty of the cities, of the great corpor- 
ations, mines, etc., etc., is so far in 
excess of the small amount which the 



ever to escape the power of these self- 
imposed task-masters it can only come 
about by a radical change in taxation. 
We must come back to first principles- 
and throw overboard the great load of 
proposed amendment would exempt injustice which has been heaped upon 
from taxation that it would at first cut ^^^ producer of values. Having no just 
but little figure in the general result. ^^^^^ p^^^ holders of land could convey 
Afterward, as the amount exempted in- ^^^^^ 3^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^cl^re occupation 
creased the property of the people sub- ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ title to land would 
ject to taxation would also increase as unquestionably work great hardship and 
the result of general prosperity. grievous wrong upon many innocent 



HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS. 

sufferers. This is not to be thought of 
for an instant. The well known rule of 
law is here pertinent: "He who cries out 
against wrong must do no wrong." So, 
he who would restore the natural right 
of men to the soil must take great care 
that no injustice arises from the work- 
ing out of his plan. It must be gradual 
in its workings. It must take time. 
Here trouble may begin, for people will 
demand sudden relief which this amend- 
ment will not give. All the enormous 
misery, all the awful load of debt, all 



45 



the great injustice which the people now 
suffer as a consequence of our late war, 
might have been averted if the people 
had been willing to accept the gradual 
manumission of the slaves by purchase, 
as proposed by Abraham Lincoln. But 
they were not. Previous to i860 we as a 
people thought our country too far ad- 
vanced to ever again engage in a bloody 
war. But we were mistaken. How will 
it be in the future? Have our people 
the virtue, the manhood and the patience 
necessary to free themselves from the 
thickening difficulties of the present? 
To do this will require all these qual- 
ities. 

The constitutional exemption proposed 
is intended gradually and slowly to en- 
able willing workers to avail themselves 
of opportunities that may be offered, by 
— means of which they may secure posses- 
sion of land which under its provisions 
cannot be taken from them. Then, the 
natural right of Robinson Crusoe to land 
would be within the reach of all able to 
obtain possession of a sufficient portion 
of the earth's surface. The moment it 
became their's a support would be as- 
sured and the fear of coming want 
which now like a strong man armed op- 
presses the nightly dreams of men would 
vanish in the clear pure air of God's 

truth — THK RIGHT OF AI,L WHO LABOR 
TO ENJOY THE FRUIT OF LABOR. 

This is the object of the proposed leg- 
islation and the sum of $2,500 is here 
fixed as probably sufficient to cover suf- 



ficient land for self support. This is why 
this whole matter is one for the differ- 
ent states to settle. In other states a larger 
or a smaller amount would be named. 
The adoption of this amendment would 
interfere with no man's title to land. 
It would invalidate no present mort- 
gage or lease, but would prevent future 
mortgaging of homesteads, "held, used 
and occupied as a home by a usual and 
private family." And the change would 
be brought about so gradually that no 
evil results could accrue to even land 
monopolists. Indeed, it would at once 
increase the demand for land suitable 
for small homesteads and thus increase 
sales. In a very few years the holders 
of these free homes having this great ad- 
vantage would be able to largely in- 
crease their taxable property not covered 
by the exemption, so that the taxable 
property of the state would gteatly in- 
crease in the aggregate as a result of ex- 
empting a part. 

At present, it will be difficult for poor 
men to buy even a small portion of land, 
but it is probable that our money lords 
will lighten the burden now resting 
upon the people from the fact that the 
workers are now to a great degree un- 
profitable to them as well as to them- 
selves. With "better times" men will 
be able to begin to buy small home- 
steads — which should be small — and if 
protected by the amendment the next 
revulsion, which is sure to come, would 
not leave them stranded as at present. 
Men of large experience as real estate 
agents, or sellers of land, tell me that 
no single act of the state law making 
power would so stimulate the sale of 
farm and suburban property as the pass- 
age of the proposed amendment. 

The United States census for 1890 
credits us with a population of some- 
thing more than sixty millions of peo- 
ple and sixty billions worth of property. 
In round numbers this is an average 
of $1,000 to each inhabitant, or $5,000 to 
each family of five. Everybody knows 



46 HOMES FOR THE HOMBIvESS. 

that this is unequally divided. I^eaving iii'present assessed valuations. In the 
out the wealth of a few thousands of country and among the farmers the dif- 
corporations and people, who are ex- ierance would be somewhat greater, 
cessively wealthy, and the rest would- Take the state of Washington over, how- 
cut but a sorry figure when divided ever, and the amouut exempted at first 
among so many. Just what it would be could not exceed ten per cent ;• on total 
perhaps no one could very accurately assessed valuation. .Then, whoever pos- 
tell. But it would be a vety small stim. sessed a little home, and lived iu or on 
In the quiet little rural town in which it, would be exempted and protected 
I reside we have about two thousand against any possible chance of its loss, 
people, and before the late great de- No one else could take advantage of the 
pression our . assessed valuation was provisions of the amendment. 

about $2,000,000. It will be seen from 

this that our average wealth is the same 

as that given for the United States, or Although the limits assigned have 
$1,000 per head. I find, however, that been overpassed I am loth to close. The 
ten persons and corporations were cred- subject is of so great importance and its 
ited with paying taxes on $1,200,000 of treatment at my hands has been so im- 
this amount. This, too, is quite likely perfect, 50 many reasons remain to be 
an approximation to national conditions, urged and so much that it now seems 
By consultation with our city authorities should have been said has failed of ad- 
I find that of our probable 400 families mission, that I sincerely hope that my 
only about one-third own and live on readers will not judge of the strength of 
their own properties. Taking out ten my -case by the paucity-of my arguments, 
residences the assessed valuation of the I shall be abundantly satisfied, however, 
rest would not exceed $500 each. The if I have said anything which shall in- 
amount exempted from taxation by the duce my readers to study the questions 
proposed legislation would thus be some- ^^re presented for themselves. In do- 
thing like th^ following: ing this let them refuse to be bound by 

10. families, $2,500 each..- $25,000 the words of great men, depending 

134 families,$5oo each 67,000 rather, upon "that natural and instinc- 

'^°^^^ ■ — ■•■ •••• ...$92,000 tive apprehension of justice which finds 

Take this amount, or $100,009. from universal lodgement in the heart of 
the total of $2,000,000 and we have a re- man," for I know full well that adher- 
duction of the taxable property of the ence to the natural and. inalienable 
town of only five percent. ' In the larger rights of man will provide, and insure, 
cities but little change would be made: Homes for The Homei^ess. 



THE END. 



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